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Thirty ITears 
y^mong Cows 



,..,BY,„ 



N. B. WHITE, 



1 OCONOMCWOC, 



WISCONSIN, 



l^f^ie COPYRIGHTED, tear. \^^y 

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DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO CAN 
BOTH THINK AND J(^»BO-. . 



Thirty T^ears,... 



....Among Cows 



-<- BY *—.'—* 



N. B. WHITE 



OGONOMOWOG, - WISCONSIN. 

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COPYRIGHTED, 1897. 



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/^/. 



HIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 



CHAPTER I. 

TO THE YOUNG. 

\ I (HESE few pagps are written by a busy man for 
-*^ busy people to read, and ten words will never be 
used when five will do as well. The words on the title 
page, "Among Cows," do not, in this case, refer to a 
man who hires help to do the work at the barn and vis- 
its the stables occasionally, but to one who does a part 
of the work himself. 

The writer lived away back in the "dark ages," al- 
though the term is not here used in the sense in which 
it is sometimes used in history. Here "dark ages" re- 
fers to the time when all the light we had in the even- 
ing was from a tallow candle and all the lantern we had 
was madb by punching holeii through tin, and ell the 
light we had at the barn was made by the few rays of 
light which managed to escape through those holes. 
In going to and from the barn, on a windy night, the 
lantern must be kept under a coat. A few of those old 
relics are still in existence and may be quite a curiosity 
to the young. 

The old barn, on the farm where my boyhood was 
spent, was 'built about the year 1800. The timbers were 
of immense size and many in number, all framed and 
put together by a master mechanic of those days, who 
understood the old "scribe rule." Under this rule there 



6 TtllkTY VEAkS AMONG ColVS 

were no two braces in the building alike, but each one was 
made for a particular place, and marked after it had 
been fitted to its post and beam. 

The barn was Imilt on a hill-side, sloping to the 
north, and the barn-yard was on the south side of the 
barn, but fully exposed to the wintry blasts from the 
west. The stable was on the west side, boarded with a 
single thickness of lumber, and for many years was left 
with open cracks. Th^ floor was made of a single 
thickness of planks and was nearly level, without plat- 
form or drop, and bedding of any kind was never used. 

As might be supposed, the sides of the cows were 
pretty well covered with manure before spring. On 
other farms cattle were kept in the same way and at 
that time the idea of keeping the cattle clean, when 
fastened in stables for the winter, had never entered the 
head of any man in that part of the country. 

The cows were dry during the colder part of the 
winter. Most of the calves were diopped during March 
and April, and the man who had skill enough to milk 
those cows without having the milk taste "barny" was 
called a very clean and careful milker. 

Early in May the cattle were turned to pasture. 
After they had been out a few days it was the custom 
to cut off an inch from the end of the tails, so as to 
prevent their having hollow tail or what is sometimes 
called "wolf in the tail." This was done early in the 
morning, and at noon, those that were still bleeding, 
were driven to the barn and the tender hearted owner 
bound up their bleeding "caudal appendages" with puff 
ball. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 7 

Physicians at that age were as blood-thirsty as the 
cow doctors. In the spring of 1851 nay grandfather 
was very sick. One Sunday afternoon, in a pouring 
rain, the family doctor appeared and took away blood 
enough to cure him, bat for some reason he only lived 
bight hours afterwards. The doctor was, perhaps, as 
much surprised as the ont^ who attended George Wash- 
ington during his last sickness, who states that he gave 
him immense quantities of powerful drugs and took 
away so many ounces of blood "but still he grew worse!" 
Glancing back, in this way, for a hundred years, we see 
how the medical experts of one age become quacks in 
the eyes of medical men of succeeding ages. 

If the " cow doctor" of olden time is at the present 
time the object of ridicule, so is the physician who was 
in practice in the same neighborhood. We wonder at 
the fooliehTiess of the past. Future generations may 
wonder at the foolishness of the present age. 

Thus, briefly, have I given the young a glimpse at 
the "dark ages." Now, just think how many thousand 
years the world has been in existence, and more pro- 
gress has been made in the physical world during the 
present century than in all the centuries before. 

In the beginning of this century there were no 
railroads, no steamboats, no telegraphs, no telephones, 
and up to the middle of the century scarcely any farm 
machinery. There were no mowing machines, no reap- 
ers, no threshing machines; and I well remember when 
the first corn cultivator was brought into my native 
town, away back in New England, about the year 1854. 
At that time there were threshing machines; but the 



8 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

grain was cleaned in a fanning mill run by hand, for 
skill had not then shown us how to make a machine 
that could thresh and clean the grain at one operation. 

Why this wonderful progress the last hundred 
years? Because the thinking men have taken hold of 
matters pertaining to the physical world. Formerly, 
if a man could think readily, he would devote his time 
to literature, the study of thelogy, medicin ■, or he 
would engage in mercantile business. On the other 
hand, if a man excelled in physical strength, he would 
learn a trade or work on a farm. He must do the work; 
the professional man must do the thinking. Once up- 
on a time a laboring man began to think. As he toiled 
from early morn till late at night, he thought of many 
ways to lighten his burden. The result was, the spin- 
ning jenny, the cotton gin, the horse fake, the cultiva- 
tor, the mowing machine, the threshing machine, the 
self-binding grain harvester^ and the whole line of im- 
proved machinery. 

In literature and oratory the world has advanced 
but little since the days of the Roman Empire. The 
pov.erful minds have found new fields for intellectual 
effort in shaping things connected with the physical 
world; and now some of the best minds are at work up- 
on problems connected with agriculture. Let no young 
man who can think, start for the city to study for a pro- 
fession because there is no chance to use his mental 
powers on the farm. Read the life of Elihu Burritt, 
"the learned blacksmith," and see how a man can toil 
and think at the same time. The value of a book does 
not depend upon the number of pages. If by reading 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 9 

this little book, so small and uninviting In appearance, 
you leai'D to use your hands and brain at the same time, 
it will be worth more to you than many a large, nicely 
bound volume. 

The writer of this has no special talent for investi- 
gating or studying out new things except the inherited 
gift of a "mathematical mind." Ordinarily a man may 
be discouraged if he does not solve a problem in mathe- 
matics in two hours, but a man with a strong love for 
mathematics, at the end of two years, has no idea of 
giving up the subject as incomprehensible. No boy is 
fit to become a farmer till he has thoroughly mastered 
every branch of mathematics, including geometry. 
By studying geometry, his min^ learns to grasp facts 
and from the facts learns to draw conclusions. It is 
said that Lincoln, when engaged in a case requiring 
close reasoning, was accustomed to spend hours over 
his geometry. 

In this book are six things entirely new : The way 
to prevent milk fever, abortion, scours in calves, and 
the way to keep ensilage from spoiling while feeding 
during the warm winters, the way to keep cows clean in 
the stable, and the way to prevent chinch bugs going 
from barley fields into the corn. Some or all these 
conclusions may be wrong but the manner of investigat- 
ing and reasoning are commended to . the attention of 
all, who do any hard thinking, both old and young. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 



CHAPTER 11. 

/ 

MILK FEVER. 

This subject is taken up first as more important 
than anything else discussed in this book. The disease 
has baffled the skill of those who have had the most 
experience. A veterinarian recently told me he would 
rather never have another case, although he cured the 
first three cases he pver had, but the next three cows he 
lost and the greater part of the cows he has treated 
have died; and it is usually so fatal that it is a very bad 
disease upon which a veterinarian can baild a reputa- 
tion. 

For years it has raged, taking away the best cows 
in the herd for its victims, and how little have we 
learned about preventing or curing the disease? Could 
a census be taken for the last twenty years, we would 
probably find that the losses of 1896 were equal to that 
of any other year in the twenty. In 1896 I know that 
six cows died in one school district, and if the average 
be only one in a school district throughout the country, 
yet the aggregate loss would amount to a large sum. 
In that district milk fever killed two cows out of a herd 
of fifteen and the others aborted. There is something 
wrong, for in my native town, during twenty-five years, 
I never heard of a single case of milk fever or abortion. 

Experience is said to be the best teacher, but in 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows ii 

my case the tuition was rather high. It cost me $700 
to learn what I know about milk fever. In losing that 
amount I was following the advice of those who pre- 
tended to know how to avoid its ravages. 

In my boyhood I often heard that rye meal was 
the best feed for cows before calving. "There wili 
never be any trouble if you give them rye meal," was 
a common expression. In the East thejr raise but little 
grain and feed rather sparingly. Used in that way it is 
safe, but fed in western style there is nothing more 
dangerous. In following the advice heard so long ago, 
I had my first case of milk fever. Cow and calf were 
in a box stall, when to my surprise the cow dropped as 
suddenly as if she had been shot. This was late in the 
afternoon, and the cow lay till the next morning in 
great agony. We sent for a cow doctor and in four 
days he had her on her feet again. She did not get up 
like an invalid, but a rabbit never jumped up in quicker 
time. The shock was so great that as a cow she was 
ruined, and, after keeping her five months, she was sold 
for beef. 

Every paper devoted to agriculture had an article 
at least once a month on milk fever, "' These articles I 
eagerly read, and from them i learned how to prevent 
losses from that disease. Cut down the feed and all 
will be well ! ' I cut down the feed at calving time and 
another difficulty presented itself. The after-birth 
would not come away and it was fastened so tightly to 
the "buttons" that the cow partially inverted the uterus 
in endeavoring to expel the after-birth. Night after 
night have I watched cows in that condition, using alum 



12 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

to produce contraction, and these cows were generally 
ruined for they refused to breed again. Twice in sue-' 
cession had I been fooled by following the advice of 
some one who knew very little, and a little knowledge 
is said to be a dangerous thing. This method of pre- 
venting milk fever is called "starvation" and if followed 
a great while it will lead a man very near starvation 
himself. 

Thirdly, but not lastly, I read a letter in the Coun- 
try Gentleman, written, by B. F. Johnson, of Cham- 
paign, Illinois, stating that one-third of the highly -fed 
cows in that vicinity died with milk fever and how it 
could be easily avoided by feeding a few potatoes to 
cows at the time of danger. That seemed to me to be 
the most sensible advice 1 had ever heard. I fed my 
cows three or four quarts of pitatoes per day just to 
keep the bowels loose, and I lost three cows in three 
months ! Behold the glorious results of following the 
advice of the wise ! 

Fourthly, My friend, H. S. Weeks, lived near me 
and was a frequent visitor at my farm. He was proba- 
bly the most successful dairyman that ever lived in 
Waukesha county. I esteemed him highly as a man of 
integrity, and for his skill in handling his cows and his 
milk in such a way that the gross earnings of his cows 
was in the vicinity of $90 per cow annually. To him I 
told my story of misfortunes, and he said he had lost 
many cows in the same way, and got some medicine in 
New York that made milk fever impossible. I pro- 
cured the medicine, but my cows died full of it ! 

Fifthly. A veterinarian suggested that he could 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 13 

give me some mediciDe to give a cow for a tew days and 
she would go through all right. The next cow seemed 
to be doing well for twenty-four hours after she dropped 
her calf, when I saw something was wrong a nd accord- 
ing to my notion something must be done. 

Sixthly. I again found myself following the ad- 
vice published in agricultural papers for years and the 
greatest humbug of all: "In case of danger give a 
pound of Epsom salts." The physic worked and ac- 
cording to all rules the danger was passed. The fol- 
lowing day she was turned to pasture with the other 
cows, but I noticed she was stiff like a foundered horse. 
At noon she was down and unable to rise. The follow- 
ing morning she was dead. Thus endeth the reading 
of the story of the calamities that came upon a traveler 
by asking those who were unfamiliar with the country, 
to point out the way. I was like a stranger in a strange 
laud — like a man lost on a boundless prairie without a 
sun, without a star, without a compass ! To stop or go 
forward was equally perilous ! 

To many this will seem like making a great noise 
for nothing. "I never had any trouble of the kind," is 
a common expression. Cows that are inclined to make 
150 pounds butter in a year will never have the milk 
fever, while one inclined to make 300 pounds, is often 
a victim. Buying a higher class of cows brought to 
me new difficulties, for they were subject to diseases 
that were unknown among common cows. Domesticate 
the buffalo and milk fever would never occur, for their 
capacity for giving milk is of a very low order. For the 
same reason a heifer is not troubled with the disease. 



14 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

These few pages, then, are of especial interest to 
those who keep the higher class of dairy cows and to 
those who are not satisfied with ona that can earn only 
$30 in a year, out of which must be deducted the ex- 
pense of keeping for fifty-two weeks before any profit 
is realized. Instead of giving up the higher class of 
cows, we wish to learn how to handle thorn so that there 
will be no loss on account of their extra dairy qualities. 
It will be seen from the experiments thus far conducted 
that we have not found the right way to feed and care 
for cows of high breeding. Shall we give up, or try 
something new? 

While cows, worth from $40 to $50 each, were dying 
I learned nothing, because I did little thinking. 
Finally, I lost a cow th at $300 would not have bought. 
Then the thinking began in earnest. I dissected her 
to find out what the trouble was and I found impaction 
in the manifolds. So closely was the green grass 
packed and dried up, removal by the use of any drugs 
would have been impossible. This was May grass, nat- 
urally so green and juicy that it acts usually like a 
cathartic. A farmer would never blame a veterinarian 
for failing to cure milk fever could he see the cause of 
the trouble. I never lost but one cow after beginning 
to think and study the whole subject as one would study 
a difficult problem in mathematics. The problem for 
solution was this: "Can anything be found in the whole 
universe which will not pack in the manifolds?" Water 
will not pack, for the particles move freely among 
themselves. Water will not answer the purpose, for 
the water may be separated from the dry matter and 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 15 

impaction maj' occur when there ia plenty of water in 
the stomach. Salts have been tried and temporarily 
accomplished the desired object, but it is a general rule 
that the use of cathartics is followed by constipation 
and I found this old remedy not only useless but dan- 
gerous. 

Cannot something be found that is not in liquid 
form? A man who raised flax once told me that a bin 
must be tight enough to hold water or the flax would 
run out. That was what I wanted in those manifolds, 
a plenty of oily, slippery flax seed and the impaction 
and milk fever will be impossible ! 

Now for the experiment to test the nature of flax 
seed. I took a tunnel with an outlet one-half inch in 
diameter, and holding my finger at the opening till the 
tunnel was full of flax seed, T found all the flax would 
run out in ten seconds. Then I filled the same tunnel 
with fine corn meal and a spoonful ran out and then it 
clogged. A little shaking started it again, but only to 
clog a second time. Now theoretically and experiment- 
ally, it appeared that flax might be a very powerful 
agent in keeping the passage open through the stomach 
and bowels. With these conditions, I will defy the 
dread disease. 

The eight weeks after the loss of my three-hundred- 
dollar cow, were spent in solid study and then I was 
ready for business. It was now the latter part of July 
and one of the largest milkers in the herd was due to 
calve soon. It was a period of unusual heat, the ther- 
mometer standing near 90 ° day and night. I built a 
pen outside the barn for this cow and put her in it 



i6 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

nights, and at night, several hours after she had come 
from the pasture, I gave her two quarts of whole oats, 
half pint of ground flax seed and half pint of whole 
flax seed. In the morning she had the same with a lit- 
tle salt added. She dropped her calf and was chewing 
her cud every day, indicating perfect health. In a 
week she was giving twenty-two quarts of milk a day, 
which was her usual flow. 

For four years, in a herd of fifteen cows, the same 
thing has been repeated with perfect success except in 
one case. Thinking milk fever a thing of the past, I 
began to be a little careless and took no precaution 
whatever when cows were running in good pasture. 
One morning I found a genuine case of milk fever. 
Taken in the first stages, the cow was soon cured and 
after a few days was giving eighteen quarts of milk 
per day — the same as she had given the year before, 
showing that an attack of milk fever, if soon cured, does 
not necessarily injure the cow for that season. 

With some men everything new is a humbug or 
they have koovn about it for years if they think it will 
prove to be valuable. I have read agricultural papers 
for years and up to this date— Jan. 27, 1897 — I have 
never seen anything about using whole flax seed to pre- 
vent milk fever. If other farmers can make as good 
u-e of it as I havo, this will revolutionize the milk fever 
business. In feeding flax whole, probably very little of 
it is masticated or even cracked and it may be indiges- 
tible with the hull unbroken. This will not in any way 
interfere with its action, for the action desired is 
mechanical rather than medicinal. It is a principle in 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 17 

mechanics that friction always retards and sometimes 
stops motion. Now flax is so smooth and oily that the 
kernels can glide by each other without much friction 
and is admirably adapted to forcing a passago, when 
other kinds of feed will clog. 

Whenever a cow refuses to eat oats mixed with flax 
put the flax into a bottle of warm water and give the 
same as a bottle of medicine, the flax will go down as 
easily as the water. This should be continued for two 
days after calving. Sometimes two men have a struggle 
to give a cow anything from a bottle. This is unneces- 
sary. One man can do it better than two. Stand on 
the right side of the cow. With the left hand reach 
over the nose and insert the fingers in the farther side 
of her mouth. Raise her mouth a little higher than the 
backbone and with the right hand insert the bottle 
which should have a long neck, reaching as far down 
as possible. 

After a trial of four years, I have concluded to 
make this public, believing it will be of service to others 
and all who read this are requested to write to the au- 
thor once or twice a year, telling how it works with them 
and whether there is any better system. With me it 
has been pretty well tested. Never more thoroughly 
than last July. For two months one of my cows had 
been dry and had run in a neighbor's pasture where 
there was excellent feed. Knowing it was nearly time 
for her to calve, I visited the pasture one afternoon, and 
found her quite fleshy and her bag full and milk stream- 
ing from all her teats. I immediately drove her home, 
and you say you know the rest, "and gave her oats and 



1 8 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

flax seed." I did nothing of the kind. Nothing could 
be more dangerous. She was full of grass, and oats 
given at that time would have likely caiised bloat and 
death. When the oats become moist, they twell and 
overcrowd the stomach, already fall enough. I waited 
five hours, then gave her the oats and flax. In the 
morning there was a calf in the pen, and cow and calf 
were in first-rate condition. 

I would not rely upon flax alone in all cases. Four 
years is too short a time to prove that it is sufficient in 
all cases that may ever occur- Let others continue 
these experiments for years to come, and we shall then 
know whether what bas proved to be true with me in a 
few cases, is true universally. What can be used in ad- 
dition to make the case doubly sure ? A few years 
since, a farmer found one of his cows in the woods down 
with the mik fever. He steeped thoroughwort, or bone- 
set, as it is sometimes called, and gave her the tea. He 
continued this for a few days and he found his sick cow 
out with the rest of the herd. Now, if there are virtues 
enough in this plant to cure milk fever, why may it not 
be of some account in preventing it ? I take five or 
six stalks after it is dried, and steep it and pour it when 
boiling hot into cold water, until the whole is milk 
warm. A cow is usually very thirsty at calving time 
and might drink too much. Give her eight quarts of 
the mixture once in two hours, until she is satisfied. 

Always milk before calving, if her bag is too full, 
and let her drink her milk after she calves. If you wish 
to take further precaution, give two spoonfuls of salt^ 
peter every morning and a toaspoonf ul of copperas every 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 19 

night If you wish to give any physic, cut fat salt pork 
into strips the size of the fi tiger and feed a pound. 
Feed by holding up the cow's head and putting one 
piece into her mouth at a time. Purk and flax are bet- 
ter than liquid for they will be thoroughly mixed with 
the dry matter of the stomach and cannot be separated. 

The plant, referred to above, grows in nearly all 
the marshes throughout the country. It stands 30 inches 
high, has a whitf* blossom and has one peculiarity not 
found elsewhere in the vegetable kingdom, as far as my 
observation goes, the stalk is in the center of the leaf. 
In my boyhood this was the medicine for any bilious- 
ness or trouble with the stomach, but its use for cow 
medicine is new to me. There is more healing power 
in herbs than people now are generally willing to ad- 
mit. Our old garret was full of herbs, but there would 
be five years at a time when a physician did not enter 
the house. 

Whole grain is safer to feed for a few days before 
calving than crround. A cow should be dry for two 
months. High feeding is dangprous at any time, but 
I would feed well enough to get her bag filled with milk 
when it is advisable to milk the cow a little at a time, 
not fearing the old saying that it will make the calf poor. 
Wheat bran moistened with warm water is a very safe feed. 
Grass, when very rank, is not desirable, but any ordi- 
nary pasture will be likely to do no harm, if you do as 
directed the last twenty-four hours. An extra cow once 
dropped her calf before she had much milk in her bag, 
and she was a very inferior cow for the season. For 



20 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

that reason, 1 feed a cow as well before calving as I 
would four weeks after. 

I am aware that these views are contrary to those 
usually expressed in dairy papers. This explains why 
I have kept still till I could feel sure that the new way 
was safe for all. Every year cows all around me have 
been dying with milk fever, while I have lost none. 
Formerly my herd was cut to pieces with that disease, 
more than any other herd in the state. How can we 
account for the change unless there is some germ of 
truth in this chapter ? After spending years at work 
upon the matter, I now, for the first time, give to the 
public the result of my investigations and the public 
will eventually either approve or condemn the new 
method. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 



CHAPTEE III. 

MILK FEVEE— CONCLUDED. 

Wishiucj to give all sides of the subject, we print 
the following, although we do not agree with the writer: 

This trouble is misnamed; it ought to be milk chill. 
Everything about it pcjints to extreme chill. The body, 
ears and horns become very cold, and where the fever 
comes in wo could never find. There is not even a mod- 
erate relapse to warmth, unless brought about by the 
attendant. Seeing that this is the case, we have got 
some tangible hold on it, and can, in most cases, so 
guide matters that the patient may be helped through 
the ordeal, if not kept free from it altogether. The 
writer has had several case.- of it in pure bred Short- 
horns, and I can safely say that our best remedy, easi- 
est and most reliable in every way, is milking before 
calving, assisted by a rather spare diet. In cases where 
the animal has been prostrated and with careful treat- 
ment been carried through, to prevent an attack at the 
next calving, milking alone will not suffice. We have 
had cows badly prostrated the second time, after most 
careful attention to milking ten days before calving. 
The bowels, even on luxuriant grass, will become de- 
ranged as the time for parturition draws nigh, and this 
must be attended to. Nothing in our experience is 
equal to a dose of black molasses for this. And, right 



22 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

here, we may say that a quart of lilsck molasses is the 
finest remedy for impactioD, in cases where "loss of 
cud" (unable to ruminate) happens to any cattle. 
We have had cows off their feet for hours at the second 
attack, even when thus treated, but always save them. 
The third attack, if managed in this way, was very 
slight. 

To have such an animal in high condition would be 
unwise; but the animal can be in condition good enough 
to do her best when danger is past. For a cow in high 
high condition at calving, being a good milker and lia- 
ble to milk chill, as I wish to call it, or one that has an 
attack, a starvation diet for eight or ten days previous 
is a wise precaution, ev^en if milked, but it is not a posi- 
tive prevention. However, I would not now fear almost 
any kind of condition, for we have brought several 
through the ordeal, and made a light attack of several 
cases that might have proved fatal if not thus treated. 

Should anyone find their cows showing a slight 
stagger while standing or walking, the second, third or 
fourth day after calving, they will have to look alive 
and provide a warm, comfortable place, well littered 
with straw. Give the animal a good dose of salts, one to 
one and a half pounds. Salts are quicker than mo- 
lasses, but if the bowels are in their natural condition, 
I prefer the molasses, they do their work complete, 
while salts will often make a passage through the bowels 
and not remove a quarter of what is wanted. Blanket 
the animal well, neck and body; thai is what is wanted; 
get the flat irons on the stove and iron the cow all over 
on the blanket; have the irons hot and iron well on both 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 23 

sides of the spine (with us a post mortem showed the 
spiue most affected). Keep at it and j'ou will save 
your cow. We have done it for twenty- four hours, and 
very good judges -Rould not give us a dollar for our 
hundred-dollar cow. The same cow has had five cjilves 
since. A celebrated Jersej^ breeder buries them up in 
the hot horse manure pile. A very good way, if one 
has the pile hot enough and big enougb. We do not 
believe that anything fed previous to calving will prove 
a remedy further than to keep the bowels regular, and 
the trouble will come when the bowels are in good 
order. The standard prevention and remedy is to milk. 
— Farmer's Advocate. 

The following was published in Hoard's Dairyman 
for curing ^ilk fever: 

The formala that was adopted, was to give one-half 
pound salt peter on first discovery of the fever (which 
is always known by drying up of the flow of milk and 
prostration) and in two hours, twenty-five drops of aco- 
nite; in tv/o hours more, if not relieved, (do not try to 
get the cow up, bat let her be quiet until she gets up her- 
self) repeat with on'^-fourth pound of salt peter and 
then in two hours with twenty drops of aconite. Alter- 
nate the above, one-fourth pound of salt peter and 20 
drops of aconite, every two hours until relieved. 

A few weeks after it was published, a correspon- 
dent said he had used the remedy with success, but 
used less salt peter. In four weeks another correspon- 
dent tried it and it failed. Here is his story: 



24 THIRTY YEARS A AW KG COIVS 

A CASE OP MILK FEVER. 

Ed. Hoard's Dairyman: — We have just lost a valua- 
ble gride Guernsey cow with what I suppose to be milk 
fover. She dropped her calf about noon on Saturday. 
I was away from home, but my man said he milked her, 
and she gave a common pail two^hirds full, probably 
seven or eight quarts. I returned about4;30 and found 
her lyiiig down, apparently a little stupid. I gave her 
a strong dose of ginger and covered her with a blanket, 
and soon after gave about a quarter of a pound of salt 
peter, as recommended on page 875 by B. W. Gregory, 
although he says one-half pound salt peter. I did not 
weigh it, but presume I gave between a quarter and a 
half pound. I gave more ginger two hours or so later. 
I thought I had no aconite in the house, but found 
some next morning, and began giving 25-drop doses. 
She could not stand up in the morning and we removed 
her to a place where she could have more room ; gave 
her plenty of bedding and kept her covered up. Fed 
another smaller dose of salt peter, and alternated with 
aconite. She never hardly moved and died Sunday 
evening. When we opened her Monday morning, I 
could find no indication of fever, and I am sure thero 
was a low temperature from the first. I expected, as 
she had a very large full udder, to find more or less 
congestion, and expected to find the generative organs 
in an inflamed condition, but found nothing of the kind. 

Now, what killed the cow ? Some would say the 
amount of salt peter would do it, but I once heard a 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 25 

farmer say he gave a cow one and one-half pounds of it 
for milk fever, supposing it was salts, and as he found 
out his mistake soon after, supposed he had killed his 
cow, but to his surprise, she soon began to mend and got 
well. My belief in this case is this: The cow giving 
so large a mess of milk right away after dropping her 
calf, I think caused a chill, and paralysis set in almost 
immediately. 

A veterinarian of my acquaintance says he has al- 
ways found the blood in the main artery along the 
spine congealed or thickened the moment the cow dies, 
and believes it occurs before death. The theoiy of 
only removing a small portion of milk at a time, for a 
day or two, is comparatively a new one to me, and I 
confess I have not been in the habit of so doing, and I 
would like to know if I lost my cow in consequence of tak- 
ing from her udder the large mess of milk she gave ? 
J, D. Smith, Delaware Co., N. Y. 



ANOTHEE REMEDY FOR MILK FEVER., 

I started out with the idtm that I could not get 
something for nothing, even from a bunch of my own 
dairy cows, and, therefore, adopted a system of feeding 
that I have often been charged with as being extrava- 
gant (which I admit now to be true in part), conse- 
quently, I was overtaken with numerous cases of milk 
fever. But I accidentally dropped onto a remedy early 
in my dairying experience, that has proven very efl&c - 
lent. 

The remedy is this; To one pound of common, 
family dry yeast add two quarts of warm sweet milk. 



26 THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 

When the yeast is well dissolved and still warm, give the 
whole mess at once and await the result. 

In the past seventeen years, I have cured fifteen 
cases of my own, and several for my neighbors, losing 
but two of my own and three or four of the neighoor's. 
Every care should be taken to prevent an attack of the 
fever, but I hare found it impossible to prevent it every 
time. And should you meet with an attack, the remedy 
should be given at the earliest sign of its approach, and 
if proper preventives have been resorted to, relief and 
speedy recovery is most sure to follow. The cow should 
be made as comfortable as possible, being careful to keep 
her dry and warm; sometimes heavy blanketing is nec- 
essary, as lung fever may follow. 

I have cured two or three of my own cows with the 
second attack, and at the next time coming in fresh pre- 
vented it entirely. Relief comes, sometimes, in six 
hours, but may be delayed for twelve or twenty-four, 
and sometimes thirty-six hours. I have had them lie 
the last named time, unable to raise their heads, and 
recover, and in two day's time be to a full flow of milk, 
and it could not have been told that they had been sick. 

J. S. Garretson, Huntington Co., Ind., in Hoard's 

Dairyman. 

These extracts may be of service to those who neg- 
lect to use the means prescribed for preventing the dis- 
ease in the preceding chapter. How much easier to 
mix plenty of flax both whole and ground, in the feed 
for a few days before such a dangerous disease gets 
started ! Is not four years a reasonable time in which 
to give a new remedy a fair trial ? 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 27 



CHAPTEE IV. 

IMPORTANT FACTS CONDENSED. 

A few subjects we must pass over with brief men- 
tion. It is the purpose of the writer to put a cheap 
edition upon the market that it may be within the reach 
of all who would care for the experience of one who has 
met with heavy losses, on account of serious mistakes. 
Had a little book like this been put in his hands twenty 
years ago, the greater part of these might have been 
avoided. "To him that overcometh" the obstacles in 
his way, there is pleasure in looking back over a clear 
road, where others may, perhaps, travel with safety. 

DRYING UP A cow. 

Cows that ar3 inclined to take on flesh will usually, 
of their own accord, go dry four or five months in a 
year, while thosa naturally thin in flesh will go dry but a 
very short time, and, in some cases, give milk continu- 
ously for years, although dropping a calf annually. 
Some writers in dairy papers think it better to let a cow 
take her own course. With those who believe a cow 
needs j;o rest, we have no warfare, suffice it to say that 
we believe a cow should go dry for two months before 
calving, because we believe that it is taxing her suffic- 
iently to support two lives for that two months, and 
overtaxing her to allow her to attempt to support thre e 



28 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

lives — her own and that of her calf dropped the previ- 
ous year as well as the one unborn. 

Farmers often state that they have certain cows 
that they can never dry up. Having never seen any- 
thing of the kind, the writer would like a chance to ex- 
periment with one of those steady milkers. On this 
farm we never fail to dry a cow, even if we take her 
from a good pasture and keep her in the barn for ten 
days with no food but straw and hay of inferior quality. 
The flow of milk is so much better for six months that 
it much more than compensates for the small loss while 
she is dry. Cutting down the feed will always accom- 
plish what would otherwise be impossible. Whenever 
the cow is milked, draw the milk all out, making the 
intervals between milking longer, but never allowing 
the bag to cake or get very full. 

CiLVING TIME. 

To make the subject complete, there will be a little 
repetition of directions printed in another piece. 

After the cow is dry, she may be run in a pasture 
having fair feed, without injury, until she has carried 
her calf eight months and twenty days; then, if an extra 
cow, she may need milking, and if she is very full when 
she comes from the pasture at night, keep her up for 
three hours and feed her two quarts whole oats, one- 
half pint ground flax seed and one-half pint whole 
flax seed. Give her the same in the morning be- 
fore turning her out. In the pasture she should 
have access to salt. More flax may be given 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 29 

without injury. If apprehensive of milk fever, af- 
ter nine months have expired, give a spoonful of salt 
peter or more at night and a teaspoonful of copperas in 
the morning. This will make a total of a quart of flax 
per day with other things mentioned. With this pre- 
caution milk fever is impossible, unless exposed to cold 
or storms or the cow has a chance to wade in water. If 
you have an inferior cow, Dame Nature will take care 
of the cow without any help from you. This prescrip- 
tion is given for the benefit of those who may have a 
few 300-pound cows, as we say when ^a cow makes 300 
pounds of butter in a year. 

In winter, during the period the cow is dry, hay 
and ensilage having only a small amount of ears, may 
be fed with safety with the addition of four quarts of 
wheat bran daily. Twenty-four hours before a cow 
calves, you will notice a falling in on each side of the 
roots of the tail, x'hat i-; the time to drop the ensilage, 
but give the same amount of flax as advised when the 
cow is on grass and for the same length of time, with 
the addition of one pound of oil meal daily, and two 
spoonfuls of salt. 

After she drops her calf, continue the flax seed for 
three days, also two quarts of whole oats twice a day, a 
little hay, and once a day three quarts wheat bran, wet 
with warm water. Keep her rather hungry, which must 
not be understood to mean on the verge of "starvation," 
which we condemn in another place. For drink, give 
from six to eight quarts of warm water once in two 
hours until the cow is satisfied. For next year you can 
provide thoroughwort, which is far better than water. 



30 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

When you have it, make a strong tea from eight or ten 
stalks and pour when boiling hot into six quarts of cold 
water, until the mixture is milk warm. This may seem 
♦o the reader as a great deal of trouble and some may 
even denounce the system as all "fuss and feathers." 
We have practiced this system with our best cows for 
more than four years with perfect success, and the time 
required does not e^eed twenty minutes per day and 
is in reality less trouble than to bury the cow, and we 
were at last cornered where there was nothing left but 
a choice between the two as we had tried all the old 
methods in vain. 

This language must not be construed to moan that 
it is unsafe to feed a cow well if- that should be neces- 
sary to fill her bag before the calf is born. It is un- 
natural for the bag to fill soon after going dry, for that 
reason two months is none too long for her to be dry, 
and less grain will be required to bring her to her 
milk again. 

THE PLACENTA, 

A few days since, I entered a barn several miles 
from home and found a fancy Jersey cow, which costs 
more than $100 when a year old, standing in her stall 
with her hmd feet elevated six inches higher than the 
floor. To make this elevation, horse manure had been 
piled up and this covered with straw. What had hap- 
pened ? The placenta or after-birth was not easily 
detached from the uterus and the whole had been 
thrown out. A veterinarian was called and put it back, 
and the cow was standing with heels the highest to pre- 
vent a repetition of what had happened before. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 31 

Had it been thrown out in the middle of the night, 
saTing the life of the cow would have been impossible. 
With me, an attempt to throw out the uterus makes the 
cow barren. For four years I have seen nothing of the 
kind. Using flax and oil meal seems to cause the pla- 
centa to come away within six hours in every case. 
Having tried this for the stated time upon fifteen cows, 
it makes in all sixty cases without a failure. More grain 
has been fed f<ir the ten days before calving, than for- 
merly. A cow usually carries her calf nine months and 
ten days, and if you know that is her habit, it is an easy 
matter to feed her enough the last ten days so that this 
difiiculty will not occur once in ten years. This fact 
was found out accidently and not by study or reading 
the experience of others. The attempt to get rid of 
milk fever also rid me of the other trouble as well and is 
what is commonly known as ''killing two birds with one 
stone," while on account of our blundering way of doing 
things, we are more likely to use several stones to kill 
one bird. Why did not some one tell me something 
about the effect of different kinds of feed and save me 
the losses that usually follow bad management ? 

Now, one thing more on this subject. Many times 
have I found it necessary to remove the placenta with 
the hand. This should always be done if it does not 
come away within twelve hours. To do this requires 
experience and no man will ever have experience unless 
he does it the first time. Thinking it was necessary to 
learn something, I began ten years ago, and when I had 
the business well learned, I never had any of that kind 
of business to do except in some herd besides my own. 



32 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

If farmers will follow directions they will never nead to 
learn. 

LOSS OF CUD. 

In the days of the old "tin lantern" people would 
sometimes mistake effect for cause, and if a cow was 
sick and did not chew her cud, they conjectured that 
loss of cud was the cause of the sickness, and I have 
seen a cow doctor make a cud of slippery elm bark and 
give to his patient, and, to his great astonishment, swal- 
low the cud he had maniafactured and draw it up agaio. 
He exclaimed: "I never saw anything beat that !" At 
the present time, it is generally understood that the cow 
will take care of her own cud if we look after her gen- 
eral health. 

MEDICINE. 

Here is a short list of simple remedies for various 
ailments, and they should be always on hand. Most of 
these are used to prevent rather than to cure disease: 
Turpentine, phosphate of lime, sulphur, copperas, salt 
peter, castor oil, cholera mixture for calves, flax seed, 
ground flax seed, oil meal, and in winter common soil 
or loam from the fields. 

When breaking in the fall, we take a few bushels 
of sods and carry into the cellar to feed to the cattle. 
This is practiced on no other farm in the world and it 
may seem necessary to give a reason. More than 
thircy years ago, two farmers were talking about their 
cows coming out of winter quarters poorer than ever 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 33 

before. One said lie could see no reason for it; the 
other expressed the opinion that it was because they 
had been kept away from the ground so long. That 
winter had been unusually long and the ground had 
been covered with snow for five months. Overhearing 
this conversation put the idea into my head that it would 
be easy to provide what the snow covered up, and when 
I came to engage in the cattle business, I provided it 
and the cattle are as eager for dirt as they are for salt, 
and each cow will eat about four quarts of each during 
the winter, provided she does not have access to the 
ground. After the snow goes off, all farmers have 
noticed cattle reaching under the barn-yard fence to lap 
the fresh soil within reach. When you ask me of what 
use it can be, I reply that I am unable to answer the ques- 
tion, but they crave it and Nature has so constituted 
them that they require it as much as they do salt, al- 
though they might live for y^ars without either. 

POTATOES. 

Occasionally there is an immense crop of potatoes 
and farmers begin to feed them to get them out of the 
way. The effect is often injurious rather than benefic- 
ial on account of feeding to excess. A peck of raw and 
a peck of boiled or steamed potatoes would always be 
beneficial. Never have I seen oxen gain as rapidly as 
when feeding each ox, daily, half bushel boiled potatoes 
and six quarts corn and cob meal, with a little salt added. 
Potatoes were mashed when hot and meal mixed, and 
the whole fed an hour later when sufficiently cooled. 



34 * THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

A horseman, who delighted in fat horses, found one 
that refused to put on flesh, no matter how many oats 
were fed. He told me he tried boiled potatoes with 
success. His uncle was once visitiDg at our place and 
he said: "You have a very nice colt, but if there is any 
trouble with him, he wont be big enough. Now I can 
tell you what will make him grow. Cut some potatoes 
fine with a chopping knife and mix a quart of cut pota- 
toes with a quart of wheat bran, and when he gets older 
increase the feed." The colt was then six months old 
and was not looking extra well. He had the potatoes 
and bran and what good hay he needed, and he began 
to grow and I never saw anything grow faster. In two 
months there was not a finer looking colt in the town. 
Almost every animal upon the farm will thrive upon 
potatoes for a part of the feed either raw or cooked. 
Hens and hogs will consume a great many potatoes if 
cooked, and there are few farms where ten bushels can- 
not be fed profitably in a day, and this looks like using 
three hundred bushels in a month, or eighteen hundred 
bushels in a winter, which would be all that a large 
farmer will generally raise even in a good season. I 
prefer one bushel of boiled potatoes, mixed with one 
bushel of ground oats to the same amount of oats alone. 
Never throw away potatoes, but use them to save grain, 
which can be kept over to use another season. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 35 



CHAPTER V. 

ABORTION. 

This is a book of experience and not of science. 
Scientific writers have 'old us much about how abor- 
tion spreads through the herd by means of germs and 
how difficult it is to stop its ravas^es. Whenever a cow 
aborts, I assume that it is not a contagious disease in 
my case, but that the conditions being very nearly the 
same with each cow, the disease will spread through the 
herd unlesn I can do something immediately to check 
it. For twelve years the subject has been carefully 
studied arid every circumstance carefully consid- 
ered so that I might gain some definite knowledge 
of the causes of premature birth. The result of my in- 
vestigations, has not been as satisfactory to myself as in 
the case of milk fever. We know when to expect an 
attack of milk fever but abortion comes as a thief in 
the night. At sun-down all is well, at sun-rise the 
farmer finds a half -matured calf. The swift messenger 
that did the mischief, came under cover of darkness and 
left no footprints behind ! 

To show the anxiety and feeling of uncertainty that 
exists about this matter, we print a letter frem Geo. C. 
Slay ton, of Vermont, written to Hoard's Dairyman: 

"There is one subject I would like very much 
to have discussed through Hoard's Dairyman; that 



36 • THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

is, Abortion in Cows. In this vicinity it is quite 
prevalent, and, as I read, it is more or less so all over 
our country. Now we see this thing and that adver- 
tised for this malady, but it is a disease that is new to 
us in this section of the country, and it is getting into 
and spoiling some of our best dairies. Now it seems to 
■ me, that we want to get at the cause and remove it if 
possible. Medicine may alleviate and help for a time, 
but unless the cause be removed it will not amount to 
much. I should like to hear this subject discussed 
thoroughly through the columns of this paper, by the 
farmers who have had experience in this matter. 1 
would say, thus far I have been favored and the disease 
has not got hold of my dairy, although my neighbors 
have not been so fortunate, and it is so general in this 
vicinity that it would seem a miracle if my dairy should 
escape infection. I have made the remark sometimes 
that if I should be favored and my cows should not be 
infected, I should think that it might be due to feeding 
them quite heavy with wheat bran. 1 know of another 
farmer near me that is a well-read man and a practical 
farmer, that has experienced no trouble with his cows 
with this disease. I understand he feeds liberally with 
bran and also feeds fine bone meal to them. Do you 
think this disease could be incurred by not feeding a 
balanced ration, thereby reducing the health of our 
cows ? And would not a nerve food tend to keep the 
cows from disease ?" 

This comes from a state which was entirely free 
from the disease thirty years ago. This writer very 
properly wants "to get at the cause and remove it if pos- 



THIRTY YEARS AMOh'G cows 37 

sible." To ascertain the cause, a man must be with his 
herd constantly and know precisely what kind of feed 
the cows get and how much. During the twelve years 
this matter has received attention, the writer has been 
away from home but one night and is seldom away at 
feeding time, and has complied with the conditions 
given above in regard to being with the "herd con- 
stantly." Life is too short for one man to master a 
dozbu different things. The trustees of our higher in- 
stitutions of learning recognize this fact; that a man 
must spend his life studying one subject in order to ex- 
cel. One man devotes his life to the study of Greek, 
another to Latin, a third to mathemathics. 

To learn aaythiug ab )at farming a man must 
devore his time and his thoughts to the business. He 
will have very little time to spend at the World's Fair 
or in managing political conventions, or in any business 
that will call him away from home. Those who read 
the following pages may be prepared to continue the 
study of the subject only partially investigated during 
the last twelve years. No rule of action is worth much 
if it fails occasionally. I am well aware that my work is 
not completed, for my rule has worked in every case but 
one, and I may spend several j ears upon that one case 
before I learn anything better. Formerly a c(>w that 
aborted was fattened and sold for beef, but this seemed 
to be a cowardly way of getting out of danger and I 
finally concluded to face the monster that has terrified 
so many, both in this country, and in Europe. For eight 
years no cow that aborted has been slaughtered and 
every cow except one has three times carried a calf full 



SS THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

time, ai^d always given birth to a calf in perfect health, 
and has always been a regular breeder ever since abort- 
ing. Hoping a few facts have been picked up that wil) 
be of general interest to cow owners, I will now go over 
the ground where I have often groped in darkness and 
uncertainty. 

To give the younger people an idea how to com- 
mence to study a subject like tliis, we will go back to 
Sir Isaac Newton. His question, "Why does the ap- 
ple fall ?" was the means which finally revealed to all 
mankind the great law of gravitation. The habit once 
formed of asking why anything happens, will, in time, 
make your mind a vast store-house of knowledge. 

The first step is to look for a cause. TVhy does a 
cow abort ? 

1. In half the cases the cause is over- work. In heavy 
soil which contains some clay, I can plow two acres in 
a day with two horses, but in practice I find it much 
cheaper to use three horses, and at night instead of 
coming in with two horses so tired th at they refuse to 
eat, I have three horses comparatively fresh and ready 
for supper. By putting the work on two horses they 
would require extra feed and they would be soon worn 
out, making the actual expense greater than to keep 
three, giving theja cheaper feed and having them fit for 
work many years longer. 

I can make 800 pounds of butter in a year from 
two cows, but in practice I find butter costs me less per 
pound to use three cows to do the same work. A farm- 
er, living in the dairy region of Elgin, said that they 
ruined their cows for dairy purposes in two years, by 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 39 

high feeding, and sold them for beef and bought fresh 
ones. Such cows may do wonders for a little while, but 
they are soon worn out. An engineer may run his train 
seventy-five miles in an hour, but it is dangerous busi- 
ness, and most of us would prefer to buy stock in a rail- 
road that was managed by reasonable men and move 
their trains tweaty-five or thirty miles an hour. 

Reading big stories and trying to get a bigger story 
to publish, has ruined many a fine herd of cows. Feed- 
ing corn meal, oil meal and cotton seed meal to excess 
has a tendency to weaken the organs of generation and 
cows will often refuse to breed at all, and those that 
will breed, will not carry a calf the full time. A man 
who had charge of a Jersey herd told me that they fed 
heavily upon corn meal, one winter, and tiie cows re- 
fused to breed. They finally dropped the corn meal 
and fed bran, and they had no more trouble afterwards. 

A man once reported to the papers an average of 
more than 300 pounds of butter per cow in a year, which 
is not very high for mature cows; if the cjws included 
several heifers, the yield is beyond what they would do 
without over-feeding. Whatever the case may have 
been, abortion went through the herd, and it made me 
suspicious that it was a case of overwork. Without 
knowing all the circumstances, it would be impossible 
to state positively what the trouble was at the start. 
In another herd of cows and heifers, with a reported aver- 
age of 300 pounds of butter per cow annually, abortion 
raged for years. 

By coming back to my own herd, where all the facts 
are known, there is positive evidence upon which to base 



40 THIRTY YEARS AMOXG COWS 

an opinion. The first case of abortion I erer had was 
undoubtedly caused by overwork, which means over- 
feeding. There was a scanty supply of butter for our 
own family and another one, and I increased the feed 
considerably. There was a root cellar under one part of 
the barn, filled witti beets and carrots, which ore safe to 
feed to any reasonable amount. Carrots and meal were 
both increased with good results as far as the yield of 
butter was concerned. Within two weeks there was a 
very small (lead calf in the stable to remind me that 
there are penalties for breaking any of Nature's la^s. 
The cow that had the most feed was the one that lost 
her calf. The cow refused to breed again and was 
ruined. There was considerable loss for she was rather 
young and I have never seen a dozen better cows. Mis- 
takes of this kind have cost me hundreds of dollars and 
no small amount of anxiety to ascertain the real cause 
of the trouble and find a way to turn the apparent loss in- 
togainby learning a lesson for the fatare, worth a little 
more to me than I had paid . 

2. Salt mixed with the feed has caused abortion in 
thousands of cases. Salting hay is a very dangerous 
practice, and many farmers have asked me what was 
the trouble with the herd, and when I ask them if they 
pat salt on the hay and get an afiirmative reply, I tell 
them there is no need of looking any farther. A little 
salt would do no harm to any animal; forcing them to 
eat too much causes the mischief. A cow will not eat 
too much if the salt is not mixed with her feed, pro- 
vided she has access to the salt all the time. Salting 
once a week or once in two weeks is unsafe. A boy, 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows A,\ 

workinn; for me, liad a pint basin half full of salt to mix 
with ensilage to feed to three animals. When I found 
he bad been doing that for some time, I told him never 
to feed them again. One of these, was a heifer with 
calf, and in a few days her calf came away. Anotherin- 
stance of the same kind convinced me that we cannot be 
too careful how we use salt. A cow that had been kept 
in the city for a long time, probably without salt, was 
put in the pasture with the rest of the herd and she ate 
as much salt as any four of the other cows, and in three 
weeks she lost her calf. Being nothing but a common 
cow, she was sold for beef a few months afterwards. 
In the former case the heifer was the nicest of anything 
in a larga Jersey herd, and she has been kept for years 
and never carried her calf fall time but once, and she is 
the only cow in the herd that has thus far proved in- 
curable. Can there be any reasonable doubt of the 
statement made before, that salt deranged the system, 
and time has never been able to repair the damage ? 
By staying at home all the time, I know all the cir- 
cumstances and conditions, and h«ve in every case 
found a reason for miscarriage, and have never found 
but one case that could not be cured within a reasona- 
ble time and that is the heifer just referred to. 

3. In this part of the country, we have had many 
dry seasons when the grass in the pasture was all burned 
up and we had to depend upon corn cut green One 
season when the corn was pretty well eared, a cow 
aborted and I took the hint that I was feeding too much 
and stopped feeding twice a day with corn and substi- 
tuted some other feed, and I had no more trouble. 



42 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

Many think that the smut, growing upon the stalks, is 
responsible for a good share of the cases of abortion. 
I have never been able to collect any evidence that 
proved the theory correct. When there is a great deal 
of smut, there is often not a case of abortion while we 
are feeding the corn, which has convinced me that it is 
not so very dangerous, although we would all prefer an- 
other kind of feed if we could ever get rid of the stuff. 
Clinton W. Smith, of Michigan Agricultural Col- 
lege, has been conducting experiments with this fungus 
growth which bears upon the question under considera- 
tion, and is printed here for the benefit of those who 
have not seen it: 

SMUTTY CORN OR STALKS FOR COWS. 



AN OBSTINATE FUNGUS. 

Eds. Country Gentleman. — Ever since, as a small 
boy on a Western New York farm, I had to feed c )ru 
stalks to stock, I have been interested ia the qnes- 
tion whether the smut so often present was injurious to 
the animals to which it was fed. To test the matter, 
four cows, in various stages of pregnancy or milk-giv- 
ing, were placed in the stable in the fall of 1895, and 
fed corn smut in excessive amounts through the winter. 

The smut was gathered from a corn field so badly 
afflicted with the disease that several wagon-boxfuls 
were obtained without difficulty. It was not attempted 
to separate the smut from the abortive ears or stems to 
which it was attached, though as little foreign matter 
was included with the smut as possible. When gath- 
ered, the smut made a large black pile in one of the 
rooms in the station barn. It kept without decay or 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 43 

apparent change of any kind. It was very light, so 
much so that half a bushel of it weighed no more than 
ten pounds. The smut was fed to the cows mixed 
with their grain feed of corn, oats, bran and oilmeal. 
The coarse fodder consisted mainly of corn stalks with 
a little hay. 

To two cows small doses were at first given, and 
the quantity very gradually increased. The other cows 
had a rapid increasing quantity given them daily until 
they were taking from a peck to half a bushel of the 
loose smut a day (3 to 10 pounds). Although the cows 
were closely watched, no ill effect of these excessive 
doses of corn smut was apparent. The temperatures 
did not vary. There was no sign of abortion in the 
pregnant cows. The milk yield was normal and regu- 
lar, and the bowels were neither suspiciously loose nor 
constipated. In no way did the system of the cows seem 
to suffer from the consumption of the corn smut. The 
cows ate the stuff with great avidity from the start. 

No alkaloid or poisonous ingredient was discovered. 
It seems to be pretty well settled that as far as the 
health of the stock is concerned, it is a useless expense 
to remove the smat before storing the crop, either in 
the silo or in the mow. 

The life history of the disease is not fully under- 
stood. This much, ho\7ever, is known: The dark 
brown or black spore? which make up the mass of the 
smut boil do not germinate in the fall of the year in 
which they are produced. If the conditions are right, 
they will germinate the following spring and send out 
secondary spores or "conidia," which may dry up and 



44 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

be blown about by winds. When one or more of these 
minute secondary spores alights on a leaf of the grow- 
ing corn, it is washed down into the leaf sheath or some 
other tender part of the corn plant, and there grows, 
sending its thread-like mycelium through the outer 
covering of the stem, and after fourteen days giving 
rise to a smut boil. 

The smut spores germinate in manure or manure 
water or in pools of water in tlie field. Passing through 
the digestive organs of the horse or cow does not prevent 
their germination. Again they will retain their vitality 
for eight years at least if buried in the soil if, for any rea- 
son, the conditions are not favorable to their growth. 

It is for this reason that this disease of corn is so 
difficult to combat. If the smut boils are out off and 
left in the cornfield, the spores will be spread by the 
winds of fall, winter and spring and will be ready to 
germinate in the next year's cornfield. If not removed, 
the spores will be carted to the field in the stable ma- 
nure, and be ready then to affect the growing crop. 
Again, the persistence of the fepores, their remarkable 
vitality would cause the disease to recur, were the ut- 
most pains taken to eradicate it from a farm for a series 
of years in succession. Moreover, unless the whole 
neighborhood joins in the fight, the winds would render 
nugatory the efforts of the individual farmer. We have 
tried spraying the growing crops with various solutions, 
but so far with negative results only. The successful 
method of fighting corn smut is yet to be discovered. 
Clinton D. Smith, Michigan Agricultural College. 



THIRTY YEARS AMOiXG COWS 45 

4. One winter two cows in my herd aborted while 
I was feeding rye and oats ground together. The rye 
seemed to be free from ergot, but the trouble could be 
traced to no other source, and the rye was all sold 
There was no more loss from aborting that 
winter, although some measures were used 
to stop it which will be given in another 
place. Rye hay is excellent for horses, and, when 
farmers have it, the greater part can be used in that 
way. In regard to rye pasture there is only a suspi- 
cion without much evidence to condemn it, and those 
who have trouble after pasturing cows on rye should re- 
port to the agricultural papers. 

5. Fright will sometimes cause a cow to abort. I 
had a cow easily frightened at any strange noise 
Within eight feet a sow had a large litter of pigs dur- 
ing the night and several had been killed; probably 
they didn't keep very still while they were dying. In 
the morning there was a calf two-thirds grown. 

6. Oil meal, fed after cows go out to grass, should 
be avoided. When selling a certain amount of cream 
I found I was running short when the cows were in the 
pasture the last part of May. Oil meal was used for a 
week, when a cow aborted leaving a strong suspicion 
upon my mind that oil meal was responsible. 

7. bodily injury may result in the loss of the calf. 

This is, perhaps, the first full statement of the dif- 
ferent causes of abortion, from a farmer's standpoint, 
ever published. There may be many other causes. 
This covers all the cases I have ever known. 

There is another thing equally important. What 



46 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

are tho symptoms ? I have read dairy papers for years 
and read reports of farmers' institutes and state dairy- 
man's conventions, but have yet to find the first word 
upon the subject. For years I watched without finding 
any warning signal. Finallj^ when going through the 
stables the last time at night, I noticed certain cows had 
a white discharge from the uterus, and in two weeks 
some of these aborted, and I fed a teaspoonful of phos- 
phate of lime daily to each of the others and stopped 
giving grain of any kind, fed no salt for a week and then 
only a teaspoonful a day. This seemed to stop wha* 
might have been a fearful contagion. 

\Vith me the use of drugs has not been successful 
in the prevention of abortion. One cow made a prac- 
tice of aborting in five months. I gave drugs recom - 
mended for the pui'pose, and this time she carried her 
calf seven months which seems to be encouraging if we 
say no more, but the calf had evidently been dead two 
months. Tlie only eSPect of drugs seemed to be to pro- 
duce contraction of the organs to prevent the escape of 
the calf after death. I could see no advantage in that 
and discontinued using atiy thing of the kind. 

Rest, phosphate of lime and coarse feed without 
much grain are my remedies for abortion. Do not 
breed a cow for eight months after aborting and she wiil 
not be likely to trouble you again if you feed grain rather 
sparingly till sh^ drops her next calf, and give rather a 
small teaspoonful of phosphate of lime three times a 
week. Rest is the main thing and if you breed an 
aborting cow in two months, she will not be likely to 
get back to her normal condition. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 47 

CHAPTEE VI. 

THE SILO. 

Presuming the reader would like a little change, we 
will now drop the sick cow and study a little upon the 
Hubject of ensilage. A few silos were built twenty years 
ago and they have gradually increased, but have never 
come into general use. If we go through any state and 
inquire, there would not be found more than one silo to 
fifty farms. In this township of six miles square there 
are silos in use on six farms; in two of the adjoining 
townships probably there are none. There have been 
three distinct eras in building: 1st. They were built 
of stone, or concrete, a mixture made by using four 
parts grave] and one part common cement. 2nd 
Farmers finding that ensilage would spoil near the wall 
began to build wooden silos and paint the inside with 
coal tar and gasoline; both of these kinds were square 
3rd. They built round silos because the ensilage would 
spoil in the corners of the square ones, and for a year 
or two they have used long staves and iron hoops which 
can be tightened when the wood shrinks. 

Of the three kinds of silos mentioned, I prefer the 
square one built of lumber, with corners cut off a little. 
I have one with a wall four feet high for the lower part 
and more ensilage spoils near the wall than near 
the boards. The reason for choosing square 
rather than round will appear hereafter. The 



48 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

silo I now have consists of two rooms sixteen- 
feet square and eigteen feet high, three feet of this is be- 
low the surface, so that a carrier twenty feet long answers 
the purpose. This is extended under the plate instead of 
over. Many use carriers thirty to thirty-five feet in 
length with no end of vexation on account of broken 
chains and gearing. 

The old way of filling would seem now rather amus- 
ing. In 1883, I had a chance for the first time to see 
how a big silo was filled. The corn was Southern white 
dent and very green, standing abo.it twelve feet high. 
Two men did tlie cutting in the field; six men with one- 
horse dump carts did the drawing; one man was run- 
ning a steam engine; two were handling and feeding 
the long corn into a feed cutter; two were inside the 
silo leveling and a boy rode a horse over the cut ensi- 
lage and tramped it, and, when it was filled, it was cov- 
ered with plank and weighted heavily with stone. Again 
in mid-winter, I visited the silo and found the ensilage 
green as when put in and sour like sharp vinegar. Such 
a pit of feed would today be called almost useless. 

Northern corn is used which allows it to become 
more mature and it Jias more ears and will not sour if 
put in slowly when rather green and rapidly if rather 
ripe. In winter it is just as good as when taken from 
the field. 

It is considered a very easy matter to fill a silo and 
save the ensilage in good condition. Not quite so easy 
for beginners. The first year half of my ensilage 
spoiled and no one could tell ma what was the trouble. 
Years afterwards I came to the conclusion that there 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 49 

were three mistakes: Ist. The corn was too ripe when 
put in the silo. 2nd. The cut ensilage was allowed to 
remain in a pile over night and heat and then it was 
spread around in the morning. 3rd. There was a 
door near the bottom of the silo, which we opened 
when we began to feed in the winter, and it gave a 
good chance for the air to enter the ensilage and make it 
heat and mould. It should have been opened on top, 
for fire cannot do as much damage on top as burning in 
the side. The hot ensilage spread in the morning, 
would mould. It should have been leveled at night in- 
stead of morning, and when we find a mouldy spot in 
the center of the pit, it indicates that some one dug 
down into the hot ensilage to find out how hot it was. 

The second year, nearly one-half was lost. The 
third year, I began to learn something and parted the 
silo in the middle, leaving two silos twelve feet square. I 
opened one at a time from the top and had none spoil 
that winter, although it froze considerably from the top. 
By covering with marsh hay and digging eight inches 
deep each day, we avoided much frost, but the whole of 
it was down near a freezing temperature. What great 
gain is there in warming water to seventy degrees and 
feeding to each cow, two bushels of ensilage about 
thirty-two degrees ? Aside from the cold there was no 
trouble that winter, for the corn was green enough 
when put in and so heavy that it j^acked nicely, and in 
those days we weighted heavily in the fall as soon as 
filled, which made the whole mass solid and excluded 
the air. 

For the fourth season I filled the same silo and 



5o THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

had rather more trouble from the frost. Otherwise the 
ensilage kept in good condition. The fifth year I built 
a new one, having moved to another farm. This time 
there were two pits sixteen feet square, and for the first 
time I covered the ensilage with chaff and tarred paper 
and put on no weight. The ensilage kept well until 
opened, when it troubled about heating and moulding, 
and nearly one-half was spoiled. In the first silo each 
pit had 144 square feet and I could feed fast enough 
from the top to prevent moulding; now I had 256 square 
feet and I was in trouble again. I read everything 
published about ensilage, yet nobody told me what I 
wanted to know. 

The sixth winter, I covered with chaff, then a layer 
of boards, then tarred pa]3er, followed by a secoad layer 
of boards an^l then a foot of straw to keep the boards 
from warping. During the winter I blandered along, 
trying several ways to keep the ensilage. As a last re- 
sort, I began on one side and took out ensilage one foot 
in depth and then covered with boards behind me as I 
proceeded across to the other side. After I had gone 
across and dug down another foot and began to go back 
I found the ensilage very hot and mouldy under the 
boards. As I proceeded along backward, I thought of 
something new, whicli has proved to be just the right 
thing in the right place. I put poor ensilage on top of 
the good and then two layers of boards, breaking joints, 
and the good ensilage remained good. The poor en- 
silage and the boards excluded the air and that ended 
the trouble. For five winters the same plan has been 
followed with good results. It makes no difference 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 51 

how warm or how cold the winter, the ensilage always 
comes out warm, fully up to blood heat and there is no 
chance for any to mould for very little is exposed at 
one time. On no other farm do they handle ensilage 
in this way. Too often in other silos, I have seen 
mouldy and frozen ensilage, both unfit for feed. In a 
round silo boards could not be handled very well for 
covering, and that is why I prefer the square one. 

The losses in the five years of bad management with 
the ensilage, were not less than $100. Did one man 
ever before do so many foolish things before he found 
the right way ? 

This method of keeping ensilage covered with 
boards while feeding has many advantages in a dry 
time in the summer, when grass is scarce. In the hot- 
test weather it moulds no more than in winter and the 
only reason no one else tries it must be because it is 
not patented. Some cut down four or five feet in depth, 
leaving much of the end exposed for a week or more. 
One foot in depth on this farm till some one else owns 
it and then no spot will be exposed forty-eight hours. 
This must work perfectly under all circumstances and 
all temperatures. If some agent would come around 
offering to sell a farm right for $5, how many thousands 
in the United States would buy it ! 

So many have seen farmers tilling a silo that this 
part of it miglit be omitted entirely, were it not for 
studying economy, by arranging every detail so that we 
use all the help to the best possible advantage. Learn- 
ing this part of the business has been quite expensive 
to us. The first silo was built in the side of a hill and 



52 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

we used a small cutter run with a oue-liorse sweep 
power and did our drawing from the field with one 
horse. Having an opportunity to fill from the upper 
side, no carrier was needed, although it was quite a task 
to move the ensilage by hand the whole length of the 
silo — twenty-four feet. Two years was enough of that 
and the next move was to part the silo in the middle, 
and used a carrier twelve feet in length, so arranged 
that we could fill either pit without moving the machin- 
ery. The corn was drawn from the field in a two-horse 
dump cart, having high stakes and attached to the for- 
ward wheels of a wagon. 

Moving to another farm, where we built a silo on 
level ground, a longer carrier was required and the two- 
horse tread power did not work as well, and for two 
years we used a sweep with six horses and a driver; 
this was four horses and one man more than we needed, 
as we learned afterwards. The tread power was set 
up so that we lost half the motion by using a short belt 
and we did not cross it, which allowed it to touch the 
pulley only upon one-half the circumference, and re- 
quired the belt to be drawn tight producing unnecessary 
friction upon the cutter shaft, the same as a load will pro- 
duce friction upon a wagon axle. Another farmer used his 
tread power successfully for filling his silo, and he claimed 
the new powers would do more work than the old ones. 
After he was through filling, I hired his power and 
asked him to set it up. He used a long belt, setting 
the tread power eight feet back of the cutter and crossed 
it which of course changed the direction of the motion 
and allowed the belt to touch two-thirds of the pulley 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 53 

instead of one-half, and the sag in the long belt would 
move the machinery easily without tightening very 
much. The next season I tried the old power set up in 
the same way, and I found it worked just as well as the 
other, the advantage gained was all on account of the 
arrangement of the belt. The threshing machines in 
the eastern states have been run for forty years with 
one-third the power thrown away, and it took more than 
thirty years for me to find it out. Horses have been 
compelled to walk up a steep grade when a much less 
elevation would have done the work. How much power 
has been thrown away if we compute the loss of one- 
third the force and allow that two hundred thous- 
and tread powers have been running threshing machines 
for two months in a year for forty years ! We talk 
about farming being up hill business, and we make it 
so, because, like the horses in the tread power, we are 
traveling up a steeper grade than necessary, because 
we never stop to think. Looking back to the beginning 
of this book you will see it is "dedicated to those who 
can both think and work." Those who work and never 
think necessarilly throw away oue-half their work. 
What part of our work did we throw away when we 
used six horses on a sweep ? We can do more work 
with two horses on a tread power and need no driver. 
We pay as much for a man's work as we do for the work 
of a pair of horses and we are using only one-fourth the 
labor we did before and it looks as though we had been 
throwing away three-fourths instead of a half. These 
pages are not written so much to show men how to 
work, as to show them that they must think while they 



54 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

work. We do a thousand things the way our fathers 
did, because we never try to find a better way. In the 
eastern states you will find that every horse hitched to 
a two-horse sled, has a dead pull and if one horse is 
willing to pull the whole load, and the other is willing 
he should, there is nothing to prevent. For twenty-five 
years 1 supposed that was the proper way to hitch a 
pair of horses to a sleigh, so they would each pull inde- 
pendently instead of hitching them to an evener so that 
they can pull against each other. In New England 
that has been the custom for two hundred years, and 
perhaps was the custom of their ancestors for two hun- 
dred years before, and it will be the custom of their des- 
cendants for two hundred years to come, unless their is 
someone who begins to study principles of philosophy 
and can apply those principles to matters of every day 
life. 

Farmers generally say that it costs too much to fill 
a silo and they cannot affort anything of the kind. If 
two or three kinds of corn are planted so that the earli- 
est is ready to cut by August 25, there is no more ex- 
pense than in harvesting corn any other way. Five 
men put in fourteen acres in thirteen days, in 1895. 
There are two of us here all the time and we hired three 
extra men, some of them at the rate of $15 per month 
as long as wanted because very many were unable to 
find work at a higher price. The extra expense for fill- 
ing the silo was $28 or $2 per acre. Is there any quicker 
way for five men to harvest an acre of corn if they take 
care of all the fodder ? At the Vermont Experiment 
station they found the ensilage worth a little more than 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 55 

the same amount of corn husked and ground and the 
meal fed with the stalks. Now, if we want to make it 
expensive to fill, that is ea?y enough — plant late corn 
and begin to fill just before it is time for frost, and if 
the corn is considerable distance from the barn, a great 
gang of men will be required to furnish corn enough 
for an engine to cut, and two men are required in tha 
silo to take care of the ei/silage. We have sometimes 
paid $75 for tilling a silo not reckoning the help we usu- 
ally keep on the farm. The difference between $75 and 
$28 will pay a man for using a little extra time for ar- 
ranging his work. 

When we work with a small force we send three 
men into the field in the morning to cut corn enough 
so that one man can cut the remainder needed for the 
day, and have time to help the driver load the wagon. 
One pair of hordes is used in the tread power and an- 
other pair on the wagons, changing horses from the 
power to the wagon as often as necessaiy. There are 
two long low down wagons and by changing from one 
wagon to tho other, one pair of horses can do all the 
hauling. One man feeds the cutter, another takes the 
corn from the wagon and during a stop of ten minutes 
after cutting each load, the feeder and the handler can 
level the ensilage. Whenever the knives need filing 
and the machinery needs oil, one man levels the ensi- 
lage, which must be done every load to secure an equal 
distribution of the ears. A total of four men and four 
horses can keep the work moving until the silo is so full 
that one man is required inside all the time. The ex- 
tra expense of filling the silo will run about like this: 



56 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

Using six horses on a sweep, $75; hiring a threshing 
engine and a gang of men, $50; filling with four or five 
men and using our own horses on a tread power, $28. 
It will pay a man to look over these figures aDd in every 
kind of work on the farm the cost may often be reduced 
one-half. 

Further explanation may be necessary m regard to 
loss of power caused by setting up machinery according 
to the custom of machinists years ago. There may seem 
to be an inconsistency in the statement when a man 
loses half his work and there is only one-third loss of 
power. All the circumstances can be better understood 
by using a three-horse tread power. When a feed cut- 
ter has a carrier twenty feet long, it will require the 
weight of one horse to move the machinery, the weight 
of the second will allow^the feeder to put in corn stalks 
slowly, the weight of the third horse will give force 
enough so that he may feed rapidly — in other words if he 
could put in ten stalks at a time when using two horses, 
it is evident he can put in twenty with three horses. 
The rollers draw in the corn and the work of the feeder 
is nearly the same in both cases and if the first case he 
accomplishes only half as much and in that sense half 
his work has been lost for with about the same effort 
he could cut twice as much corn in a day and all his 
work would count to the best advantage. 

Now to go back to the two-hors3 tread power, we 
will see how ignorance may cost a man two or three 
dollars a day. For three years we used the short belt 
not crossed and we must count the use of the machinery 
had it been hired, the time of one man to unload corn 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 57 

of one man to feed and of one man in the silo and the 
horses. At the time mentioned we hired a man on pur- 
pose for work in the silo. One of my neighbors hired 
the machinery eight days one season and paid me $12. 
Reckoning the time of each man worth $1 per day and 
the pair of horses the same, and all were used twice as 
long as necessary it seems that half the time of the men 
was thrown away every day, and the same may be said 
of the machinery and horses, making a daily loss of 
$2.75. I am telling my mistakes to save others the ex- 
pense of taking the same course. I have been thus ex- 
plicit, so that all may see the statement is correct. For 
two geasons we used six horses on a sweep, losing the 
work of four horses and a driver or $3 per day, and like 
everybody else, I have been complaining about high 
taxes and the question comes up, are fools ever taxed 
enough ? Horace Greeley used to say, "A fool and his 
money are soon parted." Some one fearing a fool might 
be discouraged, flatters him by giving him another name 
in this way: "A wise man sees his mistakes, but a fool 
never." 

Now, with the silo on the south and the horses fac- 
ing north and twice as much belting and the belt crossed 
so that it hugs the pully on the cutter, we can do twice 
the work we could in the old way and it seems easier to 
work when everything is moving along than it does 
when everything drags. Who would not rather plow a 
day with a pair of horses that are full of vim and move 
at a rapid pace, than drag along behind a slow team for 
the same length of time ? 

For years I had read everything about filling a silo 



58 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

and yet I had a great deal to learn by experience. Ex- 
perimenting with feed cutters coat me $40 and consid- 
erable annoyance by breaking down when corn was dry- 
ing up and needed to be cut immediately. One time a 
head to which the knives are attached, broke when feed- 
ing very slowly and nothing but corn stalks went through. 
I telephoned for an extra head and in four hours it 
came, but when we undertook to put it on the shaft, we 
found the head too small. The parties who kept the ex- 
tras had a summer home near our farm and we asked 
them what was the trouble, and they stated that the late 
cutters had a smaller shaft. When they went to the 
city in the morning, we sent in the one they had brought 
out and when they returned at night, they brought what 
we needed. Here was a loss of a day and a half, and 
the most of it was caused by cutting down the size of 
the shaft, which was done for no purpose of necessity 
for it does not require a great machinist to comprehend 
the fact that a shaft is no bettor by being reduced in 
size one-eighth of an inch. Many of these breaks oc- 
cured, and one time I sent off three miles and hired a 
Smalley cutter not then used by the owner. For thrse 
years I hired the same cutter and then I bought one 
like it which I have used four years and during the 
seven years those cutters have run without a break. 

The best method of planting corn for ensilage, is a 
matter that will never be settled. It is usually planted 
in drills and twice the corn used in this part of the 
country that should be planted. Eight quarts to the 
acre will furnish plenty of ears while sixteen quarts 
will give long earless stalks of little value except to fill 



THIRTY YEARS AMOS'G COWS 59 

the silo and fill the cows. One ton of well eared corn 
is probably worth more than three tons of thick growth 
largely shut out from the sun's rays. 

In a dry season, corn planted in hills and cultivated 
both ways will do much better than drill corn. We us- 
ually plant half each way in order to watch the growth 
under the two systems, putting the drill corn on sod 
and the hills on old land, where it is more difficult to 
subdue the weeds. A good harrowing just before the 
corn comes up will do more to kill the weeds than four 
times the work with a cultivator, two weeks later. The 
harrow, if it has round slanting teeth, may be used till 
corn is four inches high. Some corn will be torn out, 
but a little thicker planting will be required where this 
system is practiced. Heavy rains often pack the soil 
around the corn and the harrow is much better than a 
cultivator which can only stir the soil between the rows. 
Sod is the best land for corn, for it does not pack like 
old land, but we often have trouble with worms. One 
season the worms kept a ten-acre field of corn gnawed 
close to the ground till the middle of June, when they 
entered the ground to be trasformed. The corn after- 
ward grew up from the roots and made half a crop. 
This trouble occured on spring plowing. When plowed 
late in the fall, freezing and thawing will usually des- 
troy the eggs. 



6o THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 



CHAPTER VII. 

FEEDING FOR SIZE. 

In 1881, I began to handle Jersey cattle. Two 
characteristics at once attracted my attention — the cows 
gave very rich milk and were inclined to hold out well. 
A grade Short Horn cow in the herd having the same 
feed and care, was dry j&ve months in the winter and for 
the month before drying up, she gave but little milk so 
that her working period was only six months out of 
twelve. The Jerseys gave milk for ten months out of 
twelve and at the end of ten months we had to cut down 
their grain feed to dry them up. They had two very 
desirable traits and the only serious objection to them 
was their small size. I had seen several herds of Jer- 
seys weighing from 700 to 900 pounds each, and if we 
take the average for the country, they will not weigh 
much over 800 pounds per cow. 

I have endeavored to overcome this "only serious 
objection" and have so far succeeded that J. H, Green, 
of Waterville, Wis., said. "You may look the whole 
United States over, and you cannot find another Jersey 
herd that will compare with yours in size !" I recently 
sold a registered Jersey cow that weighed on the scales 
1200 pounds and I have had four as large as that in my 
barn at one time. I sold a bull that had had no grain 
to fatten him, that weighed 1500 pounds. I once ship- 



THIR T V YEA RS AMONG COWS 6 1 

pod away a calf by express, and the buyer wrote back, 
"I thought the Jeroeys were a small breed of cattle." 
A man while looking over the herd and noticing the 
large size, said: "You must be a good feeder." The 
opposite is true. From my earliest recollection, I be- 
gaQ to pick up facts in relation to farming. In my boy- 
hood the rocky hillsides of New England were cultivated 
with oxen and we fed them good hay, but no grain. 
One of our neighbors bought a yoke of oxen always 
poor and gaunt and you could lay your hat in the big 
hollow behind their ribs. He departed from the usual 
custom and fed them meal made from corn and cob 
ground together. For several months he continued this 
method of feeding to no purpose and he finally sold 
them looking as hard and poor as when he bought them. 
The following winter my father returned from a visit to 
the "best farmer in town" and said he found those poor 
oxen in his barn, looking so fat and sleek that he hardly 
knew them. "What had been their feed? Hay, nothing but 
fine, early cut hay. An Ohio man wrote to an agricul- 
tural paper that he had a pair of horses m good condi- 
tion and they had had nothing for two years, to his knowl- 
edge, except "grass and grass dried." A horse dealer 
once cautioned a farmer about buying a horse from the 
livery stables where they had been over-fed with grain. 
In the dining room of a hotel in the White Mount- 
ains of New Hampshire, you will see this inscription : 
"Fames condimentum optimum:" Hunger is the best 
sauce. Now, instead of high feeding upon grain, I have 
used hay and roots, heifers not even tasting of grain 
from the time they were weaned until about the time 



62 THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 

they dropped their first calves. Feeding grain is like 
feeding children on sweet cake — they are generally 
puny and sickly. If you want to see strong, healthy 
people, look at those who were brought up in poverty, 
in Germany, eating nothing but coaree food. Feeding 
grain or any kind of concentrated food to young cattle 
while they are growing will leave them Avith a small 
stomach, while coarse feed will increase the size of the 
stomach and give them good digestion. Many destroy 
the appetite of animals by keeping feed constantly be- 
fore them. Bushels of hay and ensilage are daily taken 
from their mangers, while my cattle eat everything, un- 
less we except the butts of large corn stalks when dry. 
Frank H. Taylor, of Keedsville, Pa., writes: "The bull 
I bought of you is a good feeder," and after buying a 
heifer, he wrote, "I have never seen cattle so healthy 
and vigorous as those I bought of you." F. P. Hart- 
well, of Summit Center, Wis., said, "the heifer that 
came from your place always cleans her manger, no mat- 
ter what the feed." These animals were registered Jer- 
seys, sold when calves, but their ancestors had been 
under my care for years and they had their digestive 
apparatus so well developed that good digestion was 
transmitted to their offspring. Farmers often laugh 
at book learning and dead languages, but the farmer 
who can fully comprehend the Latin inscripition just 
quoted, has a treasure worth hundreds of dollars to 
him. I once found in a bull pen a large forkful of hay 
not eaten. Uoon inquiry I learned that a coachman, 
who kept his horses in the same barn, had fed him and 
his excuse for doing it was "you are starving that bull 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 63 

to death !" A little Jersey calf, two months old, had 
been put under my care; to me he looked very small 
and unpromising, but here he was now weighing 1500 
pounds and I was accused of starving him to death ! 

For several years I have not had as good success 
in raising Jerseys of large size, for four things have 
worked against me— First, selling milk; second, a suc- 
cession of dry seasons; third, using ensilage in- 
stead of roots; fourth, the horn fly, a little pest 
which comes two months earlier than the common fly 
and works day and night. Nevertheless, with all these 
drawbacks, 1 have no difficulty in raising cows averag- 
ing 1000 pounds each, which is as large as our native 
cows were before they were crossed with Short Horns 
and much larger than you will find them on the island 
of Jersey or on most of the farms in America. 

Many think ensilage a good substitute for roots 
and of equal feeding value. This is not the case for 
young stock unless v/e feed bran and middlings with 
the ensilage. Hs^y and ensilage alone will produce no 
growth to compare with hay and roots. The chemist 
tells us that roots are composed mostly of water and ap- 
parently have little feeding value, but he admits that 
there is something about roots that aidn in digesting 
other feed and in that way an animal gets more value 
out of a bushel of roots than the analysis shows. Men 
may err in judgment or testify falsely; not so with cat- 
tle. When they tell me one kind of feed is bettor than 
another, I have never caught them in a lie. The im- 
mense amount of labor required for raising and feeding 
roots, has made it necessary to abandon the business. 



64 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

With deep regret I admit there is nothicg to take their 
place. When there is an abundant crop of potatoes, I 
put them through a root cutter and feed a few every 
day. They are hardly equal to turnips and beets. I 
supposed them superior until my young cattle told a 
different story. 

There is another reason for the small size of Jer- 
seys. They are inclined to breed young, and farmers 
often allow them to drop their first calves when twenty 
months old and in ten or eleven months they drop their 
second calves, and this system of frequent breeding is 
continued until they are worn out and they refuse to 
breed ta all. On this farm Jersey heifers do not drop 
their calves until they are past two years old, some- 
times being two and a half, and their second calves 
fourteen months later. This gives them a chance to 
grow and rest. Overwork is not necessary to develop a 
cow. The best cow I have seen in thirty years, dropped 
her first calf when she was two and one-half years old, 
and her second when she was four. Hundreds of dairy- 
men say a hejfer will never make a good cow unless 
you breed her young and breed often; if not bred m 
this way, she forms the habit of turning her feed into 
flesh and tallow, and this habit will follow her through 
life. This may be true when young cattle are fed upon 
grain during the winter, for I have noticed that over- 
feeding and overwork go together. 

When a man buys "fancy" stock, as many farmers 
call registered cattle of my breed, he wants to make as 
good a show as he can, and a calf is fed so that he is fit 
for veal and when six months old will weigh 150 pounds 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 65 

more than mine, but when four years old mine will be 
200 pounds ahead. I want a large frame and a chance 
to count the ribs until finally fattened for beef. When 
tallow is worth four cents a pound and butter twenty 
cents, only the rich can afford to make their grain into 
tallow instead of butter. When a man looks over my 
cows and sees them a little larger than he finds on other 
farms and thinks the extra size means that I am a 
"good feeder," he makes a serious mistake if he means 
that I feed a large quantity of grain. I admire fat, 
sleek calves. Can a man afford to raise them simply 
for their nice appearance at the sacrifice of profit ? 
Can a man afford to burn up ten dollar bills to make 
a bon fire that will be pleasing to the eye ? It is prob- 
ably true that there is money enough lost by injudi- 
cious feeding to pay all the taxes in the country. "Let 
ynur moderation be known to all men." 



66 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VALUE OF DIFFEEENT KINDS OF FEED. 

In determining so important a matter, the cows are 
the Supreme Court to which the whole question is fin- 
ally submitted, and from their decision there is no ap- 
peal. In March, 1896, there was a general falling off 
in milk and I conjectured that the corn in the silo 
needed something to balance it, and I began to feed 
four quarts of wheat bran and one pint of oil meal to 
each cow, in addition to what they were getting already. 
There was considerable improvement at once. Wetting 
wheat bran with warm water seemed to give much bet- 
ter results than feeding it dry, and the fresh cows that 
had six quarts: daily prepared in this way, in addition 
to the other, held out remarkably well, there, being no 
noticeable shrinkage, while they were kept in the barn. 
A cow that will give a pailful of milk twice a day and 
keep it up will earn a great deal of money in three 
months. Wnether the feed was the best in the world, 
I can only add that it came the nearest to hitting Prof ^ 
Stewart's standard — rich pasture grass — for when the 
cows were turned out to pasture, where the feed was 
the very best, there was no increase in quantity of milk, 
I only noticed while skimming that the cream seemed 
to be thicker and more of it. 

The whole feed for a day consisted of two bushels 
ensilage which was made from corn having fifty bush- 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 67 

els of ears to the acre, mixed with eight quarts wheat 
bran and three quarts middlings or shorts and one pint 
of oil meal, and all had one feed of timothy hay at noon. 
Clover might have been better, had we been able to 
raise it. To the fresh cows, one-half the bran was fed 
in a pail as slop Scarcely any two cows were fed alike, 
but this is given as the average. 

Considerable has been said in these pages in favor 
of feeding wheat bran, now, to prevent misapprehen- 
sion in regard to this matter, I will state that feeding 
bran dry and using hay of any kind for the rest of the 
feed is a very foolish way of expending your money. 
The best results are obtained from bran, when we com- 
pound with heavier feed. One ton of corn meal and 
one ton of wheat bran are undoubtedly worth more 
than two tons of corn meal. The same may be said 
when we mix bran with middlings or a low grade of 
flour. 

The followiog is copied from an old scrap book, au- 
thority unknown: 

VALUE 
PER 100 POUNDS. 

Timothy Hay $0.62 

Barley 1.04 

Oats 95 

Rye 98 

Corn 1.15 

Rye Bran 1.02 

Wheat Bran 1.02 

Cotton Seed Meal 2.10 

Linseed Meal 1.66 



68 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COIVS 



CHAPTER IX. 

KEEPING COWS CLEAN. 

In the Northern States for six months in a year, 
one-half the cows have their sides covered with manure, 
some portion of which goes into the milk pail every 
day A city caterer once told me that his cream was al- 
ways strong in the winter. Various devices have been 
invented to keep the cows clean in the winter, but the 
most curious of all is a floor, the back part of which 
consists of iron grating. 

In one barn, I saw the cows kept in box stalls and 
I have done the same thing, when I had tried so many 
ways of fastening and all of them furnished a barn full 
of dirty cows in the spring. When a farmer keeps a 
large herd of cows, box stalls are out of the question on 
account of the immense amount of work required to 
tend them and the great cost of building large barns. 
When the cows are allowed to stand beside each other 
and have some kind of fastening, how quickly a man 
may drive thirty cows from the yard aLd have them 
fastened in their places ! Did you ever notice them as 
they come in and each cow chooses her own stall ? 
Here are thirty stalls along the row precisely alike, and 
a man could with difficulty pick out the stall of any par- 
ticular cow, while each cow knows as she passes along 
where she has stood before. Is she guided by sight or 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 69 

smell ? A bird may have a nest in a thousand acre 
wheat field and fly all over it and return to the same 
spot at any moment. This seems to prove that the 
lower order of animals must have "locality" stamped 
upon the brain while man has not. This would 
naturally lead us to the discussion of "instinct" 
which will be considered in another place. 

When a boy goes to school he begins to learn the 
first day, but I had been in this cow school more than 
twenty years before I ever began to learn anything 
about keeping cows clean in the stable. In 1885, I 
learned in two days all I ever knew about it. It hap- 
pened in this way: I was keeping cattle in a barn built 
by another man, and he thought it was a fine thing to 
have a manger two feet high, and »vhen a cow was stand- 
ing her fore feet would be near the front board of the 
manger, and when she wanted to lie down she had two 
feet of loose chain and she would naturally back up so 
that this front board would not be in the way of her 
head, and lie down in the naanure. If a man should 
spend fifty years to invent a stall which would make his 
cows as filthy as possible he would never find anything 
better adapted to his purpose ! In the fall of 1896, a 
heifer dropped her first calf. At night she was con- 
fined in one of these stalls just described. Every morn- 
ing I was obliged to get a pail of water and wash her 
off before I could milk her, and one morning an idea 
struck me, and I was in very nearly the same situation 
as the other man, whose neighbor remarked: "An idea 
so seldom strikes you that I wonder it didn't knock you 
down." Well, the idea was this: A cow should have a 



70 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

chance to lie down as far forward as she stands. With 
an axe I knocked out the two front boards of the man- 
ger and fastened the chain with a staple in the board in 
front of the stall and the next morning the heifer 
was clean ! The other mangers were served the 
same way, and for years there has never been a 
manger of any kind in my cow stable. Every farmer 
who enters the stable, expresses surprise. There is 
only one other instance of the kind on record. The as- 
sociate editor of Hoard's Dairyman stated in January, 
1897, that he had no manger. The question then comes 
up in regard to priority of invention, but as each used 
that kind without the knowledge of the other, both 
may claim the honor of inventing the stall. Who wants 
to pay $5 for a farm right ? As far as the writer is 
concerned, all may have a chance to use the patent stall 
one hundred years free ! 

Before feeding ensilage we pass along in front of 
the cows and sweep back straw, chaff and dirt, which 
will soon accumulate in a tight mangpr, aud we thus 
very quickly, clean them all daily and there is no feed 
wasted. For cows weighing about 1000 pounds each, 
the platform should be seven feet in length. It had 
better be six inches too long than one inch too short. 
The greatest trouble I have, is with cows that have 
formed the habit of stepping off the platform on ac- 
count of being too short. In practice we use chain with 
ring sliding on a pole with a piece of wooden pump tub- 
ing, eight inches long, on the lower end of the p'>le to 
prevent chain from slipping so low that the cow would 
be likely to step over. VVe use only six bushels of straw 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 71 

for twenty head of cattle. At uight, after the cattle are 
put in the stable, we pass along with card and brush 
and clean any cow if necessary. There are seldom more 
than two in the whole row that we need to touch. Our 
cows come out of the barn in the spring as clean as 
they were in the fall. The time necessarilly spent in 
cleaning during the winter would not exceed ten hours, 
or three minutes a day. This will prevent the accumula- 
tion of manure, but very much more time may profita- 
bly be spent in cleaning cows if we wish to have a herd 
make a good appearance. 

Under our present system we hear of no complaint 
in regard to cleanliness. One lady, who has had 1000 
bottles of milk, states that she has never seen any dirt 
or settlings. Before making any change in your stable, 
we advise you to experiment with one cow. Stanchions 
are in general use throughout the country, but there is 
a serious objection to any kind, for a cow stands with 
her shoulders touching the stanchions, and when she 
lies down she backs up the length of her neck which is 
not the way to keep her clean. 



72 THIRTY YEARS AMO^G cows 



CHAPTER X. 

WATER SUPPLY. 

Until the writer was fourteen years old, the cattle 
on the old farm were compelled to go a long distance 
through the field to a brook for water in winter. In 
pleasant weather, they would go once a day, when very 
rough and stormy and the path filled with snow, they 
would never start out unless we drove them, and then 
only a part of them would drink for there was a chance 
for only one at a time, and the last ones were chilled 
through so that they would not drink. If the storm 
abated the following day, there would be a better show, 
but at best a part of them would go forty-eight hours 
without water and their feed was all dry hay and straw. 
"With such feed a cow of average size would probably 
drink twenty quarts in a day, and from thirty to forty 
quarts at a time if she drank every other day. Then* 
she had the comforts of a cold stable for the night after 
drinking such a quantity of water near the freezing 
point. Who can wonder that the cows came out "spring 
poor" or that the boys were anxious to get away from 
the farm ? 

The next move was to conduct the water from a 
spring to a trough in the barn-yard which was a great 
improvement upon the old ways, but the water was ice 
cold and cows usually drank but once a day. 



4<f 

1c3 



o 



^r> cS 




THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 73 

Here in Wisconsin we pump all our water with a 
wind mill into a large tank, and we can warm this with 
coal, costing for a winter about $6 for forty head of cat- 
tle and horses. Many days during the winter are too 
cold and stormy to turn cattle out of the stable, and I 
put in a three-inch iron pipe from tank to stable, and I 
could pump enough for a day in ten minutes. By rais- 
ing boards in front of the cows, they can drink from a 
three-cornered wooden trough, and this is the coming 
water sytem for the country — warm watar in the barn 
so that cattle may drink twice a day instead of once. 



CHAPTER XL 

HEREDITY. 

This is a word seldom if erer used. Hereditary is 
very commoa and similar forms we see every day. 
That we may understand in what sense it is used, it will 
be necessary to go back to another language. In Latin, 
"heres" means an heir. Hereditas: heirship. Similar 
words are used when property passes from father to 
BOD, and its general signification is that property passes 
from one relative to another, and here we wish to give 
it a special meaning in regard to transmitting mental 
and physical characteristics to offspring. 

A son becomes the heir to his father's property be- 
cause he is the nearest relative, and he has the best 
right to it. Does the son also inherit the brain power 



74 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COiVS 

from his father ? If we go back to the Adams fami'y 
of Massachusetts, we find a very wonderf al instance of 
children's inheriting brain power from their ancestors. 
There were five or six generations that might be called 
brilliant, even in the literary atmosphere of Boston and 
Cambridge. This is perhaps the only instance in which 
we find so many generations of orators. Lyman Beecher 
was a great orator and so was his son, Henry Ward 
Beecher, but the sons of Henry Ward have never had 
any reputation as pud lie speakers. Daniel Webster, as 
an orator, was seldom equaled. His two sons have left 
no speeches for future generations to admire. Stephen 
A. Douglas could hold an audience spell-bound. His 
sons were not especially gifted in that direction. Musi- 
cal talent is generally inherited, and it is a matter of 
regret to me that two of the most noted singers of the 
age, will, within a hundred years, die without posterity. 
Travel through Germany and Italy and you will find 
two nations full of natural musicians. 

Peculiarities of form and feature are often trans- 
mitted from one generation to another. Children of- 
ten resemble each other, sometimes the resembla'ice is 
so strong that strangers can detect no difference. In 
one instance both the parents had dark complexion and 
some of the children had very light hair and eyes, and 
they were said to "take back." 

Now, does this "taking back" apply to the lower 
order of animals as well as to mankind ? If it does, 
there is nothing more important for a breeder of stock 
to study; and we here give a place to the consideration 
of the great question of transmission of qualities. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 75 

The facts thus far established by breeders of horses 
and cattle are these: When a single animal has excel- 
lent qualities, those qualities are not likely to be trans- 
mitted to the offspring, but if this animal descended 
from a long line of ancestors having the same qualities* 
we may look for the continuance of those qualities in 
the offspring — in other words, the offspring will "take 
back," but often not to the sire and dam, but to ani- 
malfc! many generations back. 

The breeders of trotting horses have given a doubt- 
ing world ample proof of the great law that "like pro- 
duces like," when a horse has descended from a long 
line of trotting stock. Some horses having the best 
pedigrees, have proved failures, but the great majority 
of those inheriting fast blood have been classed among 
"good steppers" if they have never entered the 2:30 
class, and colts without any record have sold for thous- 
ands of dollars per head because there was a strong 
probability that "blood would tell" when the colts came 
to maturity. 

The general experience of breeders of all kinds of 
stock is as well known to others as to myself, and it will 
not be profitable to dwell upon general facts, but I will 
give a little testimony about breeding as far as it has 
come under my own observation, and the reader may 
draw his own conclusions. 

In my boyhood on the old farm, we had a "scrub" 
cow very rarely excelled by a cow of any breed. She 
gave a large quantity of milk and I well remember the 
thick cream we found upon the tin pans. Considering 
the feed and care a cow received in those days, I am 



76 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

convinced that she was capable of making a very high 
butter record under our modern system of feeding. 
Dropping just a word here about Gov. Hoard's "nervous 
theory," I will state that I have never in my life seen 
another cow half as nervous. This remarkable cdw was 
kept till she was fifteen years old and with one excep- 
tion, she always dropped a heifer calf, and from these 
heifers we expected to raise the best herd of cows m 
the country. Facts are stubborn things, but only one 
of these heifers proved to be anything more than an 
average cow, and, excepting that one, they were all quiet 
and gentle. Some of the calves were sold when small 
and I am not able to state how those developed. For 
many years we stuck to this "breed" with no great suc- 
cess. In fact, our luck in the cow business was very 
similar to the cat business. We had a black and white 
cat, wnich as amouser was never beaten; every morning 
there were five or six mice on the door-step. Every year 
we raised two or three kittens, which were kept until they 
got their full size and then killed, for they wo aid all 
eat the mice brought home by the old cat, but a kitten 
was never known to catch a mouse herself ! Those kit- 
tens, while they lived, enjoyed what many wise people 
call prosperous times. 

This is similar to the story others tell about extra 
cows. Occasionally they have a cow very much better 
than the average, whether from chance or from an ex- 
cellent dam it is impossible to determine what law gov- 
erns the case. When a cow has descended from a line 
of cows of all kinds, both superior and inferior, she 
seems as likely to belong to one class as the other. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 77 

Those who keep thoroughbred cattle of any breed, 
have had a different experience. Having a long line of 
excellent cows for a foundation, the heifers will gener- 
ally make good cows, although there are some excep- 
tions. In 1881, I began to handle Jersey cattle, and 
one cow, said to be the best out of a herd of fifteen, 
dropped a heifer calf the following season. This heifer 
did not have a calf till she was two and a half years old, 
and six weeks before calving there was very little udder 
development and I felt sure she would not give more 
than six quarts of milk per day. The quantity proved 
to be sixteen quarts instead of six and we were obliged 
to milk her every eight hours. This was in September 
with only fair feed in the pasture and no grain except- 
ing some ears on fodder corn. Her calves were hardly 
equal to the dam, excepting one which was sired by a 
St. Lnmbert bull of excellent pedigree. As a heifer, 
this one did not appear to be above the average, but she 
developed later and when six years old, gave forty- four 
pounds of milk a day and made seventeen pounds of 
butter a week, with scarcely any feed besides grass. 
Her mother had a long hanging bag; the St. Lambert 
blood had cut this off and made the short bag well-filled 
back and forward. In the face the cows looked pre- 
cisely alike, even to the shape of the horns, each cow 
having one horn curve around so to strike the forehead. 
Right here is the greatest mystery of the whole breed- 
ing business. What is there about the relationship 
that should cause the horns to grow precisely alike, not 
in the usual shape, but with a peculiar curve alike in 
both cows ? Each cow was very long and would weigh 



78 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

1100 pounds. The older cow was built according to 
rule, being wedge shape; the younger one was squirrel 
shape — the fore and hind quarters being about the 
same size .The younger cow was a trifle better than 
the other, and the rules about the proper shape of a cow 
are worth nothing to me. In selecting a heifer calf, I 
would look for a long body, a thin, soft, yellow skin and 
for the other good qualities, I would depend upon pedi- 
gree. One of my best cows has not even the long body. 
For sixteen years, I have watched the herd and with 
few exceptions my cows have turned out milk and but- 
ter according to pedigree and not according to shape. 
In 1884, I bought five heifer calves without seeing 
them, depending mostly upon pedigree for superiority. 
When they dropped their first calves, it was rather dry 
weather and none of them did very well, and eight 
quarts of milk per day was all any of them gave. Two 
of these had a much better pedigree than the others, 
but all seemed to be equally poor, and my faith in but- 
ter blood passing from one animal to another, wp^s some- 
what shaken. These two had a very yellow skin and in 
three years more one of them was giving twenty-two 
quarts of milk per day, nearly three times what she 
gave the first season, showing that it is not good policy 
to sell an animal for beef becaune she is inferior the 
first season. The other heifer with extra butter blood 
seemed to be inferior to all the others, and many a time 
I wished someone else owned her. She dropped her 
first calf in September, and the next June her bag was 
pressed full and in this respect she differed from the 
others. How was it with her descendants ? Two gen- 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COH^S 79 

erations later, a heifer gave milk continuously for a 
year and eight months and I had to put her in the barn 
and feed her straw and poor hay for ten days, in order 
to dry her up two months before dropping her second 
calf. The trait of holding out has been handed down 
from geaerafcion to generation and the heifer that seemed 
to be so inferior was really equalled by only one of the 
others. The two heifers with the best pedigrees proved 
to be the best cows. I once sold a bull to W. IJ. Bart- 
lett, of Eagle Point, Wis., combining the blood of one 
cow giving twenty-one quarts milk per day, of another 
giving twenty-two quarts and this strain remarkable for 
holding out, two of the three being very rich milkers. 
What effect this blood will have upon his herd, time 
will tell. 

One heifer, when she had been milked only two 
weeks, would make a noise similar to the one she makes 
when she calls her calf, whenever she heard the pails 
rattling against each other as they were brought to the 
bars. She had learned that the milker relieved her 
udder and she was milked immediately after the pails 
were brought in, and sh* had associated the sound with 
what followed. A daughter of this cow does the same 
thing, not when the pails come but when stie sees the 
milker standing near her with a pail, for she is not 
milked till near the last. This indicates intelligence. 
The other cows do nothing of the kind and the younger 
must have inherited the intelligence from the dam. 
This is certainly not a case of imitation, for the older 
one was sold a year and a half before the younger drop- 
ped her first calf. Both are very gentle and like to be 



So THIRTY YEARS AMONG'^COWS 

petted and I find the children in this heifer's stall, but 
in no other. When tho cows go to pasture, this heifer 
keeps in the rear and the children walk beside her with 
one hand on her back, and they say her calf must not 
be sold, although they say nothing when the other calves 
are crated and sent away. 

Enough has been stated without taking more sp.ace, 
to show the reader why pedigree means very much 
more to me than it did when I began the breeding busi- 
ness a dozen years ago. There are exceptions to all 
rules. I gave away a heifer from my best cow, when 
she was more than a year old, because I considered her 
worthless, and I do not think she has mora than paid 
for her keeping for the four years she has been giving 
milk. But in nine cases out of ten, my best heifers are 
from the best cows and from the cows that have a long 
line of good cows for ancestry. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 8i 

CHAPTER XII. 

KICKING COWS. 

In the preceding chapter, mention is made of a 
very nervous cow noted for her excellent dairy qualities. 
She would usually stand still to be milked and she was 
the only cow on the farm that had the privilege of run- 
ning loose in the stable during the winter. The story 
told us was that when young she was fastened with a 
"bow" made of elm the same as others, but she strug- 
gled so long they feared she would break her neck, and 
my father decided to let her have her own way to save 
her life, and during my day neither halter nor hand 
ever touched her except when she was milked. She 
would noi; attempt to run away, but stand in the open 
yard or in her pen in the barn as well as the other cows 
that were fastened. The only trouble we had was occa- 
sioned by chapped teats which she had during the windy 
months of spring. 

With her, kicking was no great effort, for she was 
naturally quick motioned and you might as well at- 
tempt to dodge lightning as a blon^ from her foot. Just 
one stroke and over would go the pail and, perhaps, the 
milker. To donfine her by head or foot was considered 
out of the question, for, as far as I know, no spot on the 
cow was ever touched except her teats, and the way 
they got her accustomed to being milked, was by let- 
ting the calf suck the cow according t<? the custom of 



82 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COIVS 

those days, for two months or more, and while the calf 
was sucking one side, some one would milk on the other 
side. To deal with such a cow would tax the ingenuity 
of the greatest writers upon dairy topics. The means 
used to prevent her from kicking were very simple and 
very effective, and were probably never tried on any 
other cow since the days that Adam and Eve milked in 
the Garden of Eden. Before I was large enough to 
milk, it was often my business to control this cow so 
that some older person could do the milking. This 
seems almost like the peaceable times coming, men- 
tioned by Isaiah, when the wild beasts would be so 
quiet, "that a little child shall lead them." I stood be- 
side the cow with a big club raised over my shoulder, 
while the eyes of the cow "would roll out like peeled 
onions," as we used to say. The club was never used 
and, while I stood there in a threatening attitude, the 
cow never moved a foot no matter how sore her teats 
were, and the only wonder is that she never held up her 
milk. Whether this method will work as well on other 
cows, farmers can best find out by trying. 

The next kicker was a heifer, descended from this 
cow and she seemed to inherit all the kicking blood, 
but only a part of the butter blood. Milking may be 
done very well if a cow kicks occasionally, but this 
heifer kicked all the time. Some farmer told us to 
buckle a strap aroand her body in front of the bag. 
This had precisely the same effect it would have to tie 
a string around her tail and no more. We finally suc- 
ceeded in controlling her by milking with the right 
hand and with the left reaching in front of one leg and 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 83 

taking hold of the cord above the gambrel joint on the 
other leg. This was slow and laborious work, and not 
for years afterwards did I learn to use a better method. 
We now have a strap made similar to a hold-back strap 
in a single harness, but six inches longer. Put this twice 
around each hind leg above the gambrel and buckle. 
The heifer will struggle, but she can neither injure her- 
self nor the milker. As I am always at home when the 
chores are done, training heifers has always been my 
work and for years this strap has been used on every 
heifer, and I sit down and milk the first time with both 
hands and often continue to use the strap for two or 
three months and the result is, I never have a kicker in 
the herd, unless some cow happens to have sore teats. 
Shall we feed a heifer grain to take up her atten- 
tion while we are milking ? This is a good practice 
with both cows and heifers for a few days after the 
calves are taken away, as this will prevent their holding 
up their milk. In a short time, hay may be substituted 
for grain and no hay will be needed after a week. It is 
not desirable to have cows form the habit of eating 
while you are milking, for in summer it is not always 
necessary to feed, and very many farmers woul d con- 
demn the practice of feeding at the time of taking away 
the calves. I consider it necessary, for holding up milk 
is very common at that time, and, when a cow does this 
once, there is great danger that she will do it again un- 
til it becomes a fixed habit. A few years since, I was 
buying milk of a man to ship to Milwaukee. Being 
rather short at one time, he said: "I will bring you 
milk enough tomorrow night, for four calves are sold 



8 4 THIR T Y YEA RS AMONG CO WS 

and going away tomorrow." The next night came and 
he brought only the usual quantity and gave as a reason 
that none of those cows would give any milk. Now, 
when four cows will do this, it indicates that this is a 
general practice among cows to hold up their milk when 
calves are taken away. 

In 1887 a widow had two cows and wanted to sell 
me one of them. As she offered me the best one, the 
bargain was soon completed and I drove my cow home. 
She was then five years old and to appearance one of 
the finest cows in the neighborhood. I foimd that she 
would fill a large pail with milk twice a day, under fa- 
vorable circumstances, but when anything happened to 
disturb the cow at milking time, she would hold up her 
milk and put one foot in the pail in "the twinkling of 
en eye." On the whole I was not remarkably well 
pleased with my purchase, but had no idea of losing so 
fine a cow without making an effort to conquer her. 
A cow that will hold up her milk and is a desperate 
kicker besides is very undesirable property to own to 
say the least. I kept that same cow five years and after 
I had a fair chance to put my thinking powers against 
hers, she neither held up her milk nor did she kick. I 
conjectured that under her former owner when she be- 
gan to kick, some feed was brought to take up her at- 
tention and without this feed she would hold up her 
milk. A heifer can be trained in almost any way, but 
this cow was too old to learn new tricks, and when I was 
ready to milk, I gave her bran or some feed that she 
could not eat rapidly and put on the strap previously 
described. At first there was quite a struggle over the 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 8$ 

tttrap aud one or two loops were broken off. She finally 
gave up the struggle. In winter when we were feeding 
ensilage, we always saved her's until milking time and 
by letting the cow have her way about feed, she con- 
cluded to let me have my way about the strap, and, dur- 
ing the five years we owned her, there was not a nicer 
cow to milk in the barn. She would never raise a foot 
nor did she ever hold up her milk, and if you have a 
cow that kicks or holds up her milk, you can take a 
similar course, or sell her for beef. After a cow is five 
years old, it is not easy to break her of bad habits; 
there is only one thing that will make any impression — 
cultivate her forgetf alness. I give a cow feed when her 
calf is taken away, so that she will forget her calf for 
the time being aad in the same way, while the cow is 
satisfying her appetite she forgets to kick or hold up 
her milk, the strap was only used as a means of safety 
in case the forgetfulness was only partial. A cow can 
neither kick nor hold up her milk without the exercise 
of will-power. Give her chloroform and this will-power 
becomes dormant and she will be quiet. Have you 
ever read before or using an animal's forgetfulness to 
accomplish a desired purpose ? 

Any nervous cow may at any time form bad habits. 
I had milked a cow for four years and she always gave 
down her milk. One summer I hired a boy, who was 
in a hurry to get through with the milking, for he knew 
this was the last work of the day. Once or twice, in 
my absence, he milked this cow, and he complained that 
she would give scarcely any milk. The cow began to 
hold up her milk with me in the same way, and for 



86 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

years I was obliged to give her feed to work upon the 
nerves of forgetfulness until I had finished milking. 
Most farmers want to hire fast milkers, but with me 
^he fastest milkers have invariably been the poorest. 
Retaining part of the milk will always dry up a cow, 
and when a cow gives but little milk, it is only a grad- 
ual, slow process that will draw it all out. Inventors 
may work upon milking machines for a hundred years 
and they will learn that a calf is the only machine that 
will be a success with all kinds of cows. One man owned 
a large farm and kept fifty head of cattle and got along 
well enough with one hired man, by letting the calves 
do the milking. This custom may spoil the cows for 
hand milking, the only question is whether it pays bet- 
ter than the old way. Where there is a local demand 
for fat calves that will dress 250 to 300 pounds each 
and young calves can be purchased for SI per head, veal 
farming may pay better than anything else. To get 
the net profits upon a cow, we must deduct the cost of 
feed and labor. When the labor is verj little the grosa 
income may be small and still give a fair net income. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 87 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CROSS BULLS. 

Of all the breeds of cattle now kept in the United 
States, the Jerseys are famous for famishing the great- 
est number of vicious bulls. Since 18S1, I have had 
one or two Jersey bulls to take care of, and they have 
often been kept till they were six or seven years old, 
thus giving me an opportunity to learn their nature and 
the best method of handling them. The first one I had 
to deal with, had been led by snapping a rope into the 
ring in his nose until he was past three years old. In 
this way he had been handled to put on the cars and 
take to the State Fair at Madison when he was two 
years old. Hq was so well trained that no staff was 
considered necessary, for there was no more trouble in 
leading him than in leading a horse. Something hap- 
pened when he was three years and a half old, that 
taught me that it is never safe to depend upon training 
and education to make them safe to lead with a rope 
and no staff. 

I had fenced a small pasture with barb wire on 
purpose for a bull pasture. When the fence was com- 
pleted, I was leading the bull along and a hired man 
was leading a younger one, or rather the bull was lead- 
ing him, and I was watching and laughing at his ma- 
neuvers, when suddenly he turned the laugh on me, for 



m THIRTY YEARS AMON'G COlVS 

I found myself prostrate at the foot of a tree. I was so 
busy watching the performance with the other bull that 
I was not moving quite fast enough to suit my bull, and 
he came up behind me ram fashion and knocked me out 
of the way. The blow was severe enough to knock me 
off my feet in an instant, but I had sixty rods more to 
lead him before reaching the pasture, and I never 
thought of giving up the job on account of being knocked 
down. By keeping my eyes on the bull and using a 
small stick I had in my hand, I finally reached the pas- 
ture without any further trouble, and I learned a lesson 
which I have remembered ever since. A bull, like a 
gun, becomes dangerous when carelessly handled, and 
as large a proportion of gunners are killed every year 
as of bull tamers. In one case, we say it is carelessness, 
in the other bulls are dangerously animals. 

To draw the danger lino, it may be stated that it is 
unsafe to allow a Jersey bull to run in the pasture after 
he is two years old. He should be kept in a pen made 
especially for the purpose. I have a pen unlike any 
other, which is safe for the man who takes care of th^ 
bull and is a great improvement on those generally 
used. There is an extra slide door on the inside four 
feet high and made of plank. It is impossible for him 
to break through this and the only precaution necessary 
is to fasten it so he cannot slip it and that part of the 
pen is completed. At the opposite end there is an ar- 
rangement for feeding and watering. Posts are set up 
with an opening in the middle large enough for a bull 
to put his head through, and fourteen inches in front of 
the opening stands a wide plank which will prevent him 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 89 

from {getting his body through the opening and it leaves 
room to set a large pail for watering also for putting in 
feed. This pen has been used for seven years and found 
to be perfect in every way. When we wish to clean and 
bed the pen, we give the bull feed and fasten him with 
rope and snap, or the opening might be made like a 
stanchion and whenever he puts his head in for feed, it 
will be easy to secure him. 

In this pen we kept one bull never cross, but so 
fond of play that it was unsafe to take him out and lead 
him with rope and staff as we can most bulls. He had 
a habit of whirling around all the time and getting down 
on his knees and trying to make a dive at you. It was 
easy to hold the forward end, but the hind end would 
describe the arc of a circle. He was easily handled by 
taking a pan of oats and calling him up to the plank 
door just described. After getting a snap into his ring, 
one man held him while the other blindfolded him 
which we often did by putting a cotton jacket over his 
face and fastened by putting his horns in the armholes 
and tying the sleeves under his throat and buttoinnc^ 
the other part around his nose. In this way he was per- 
fectly helpless and as easy to handle as a calf. By 
building a etrong yard thirty feet square outside the 
pen, it would be easy to handle a cross bull without tak- 
ing him out. With feed call him up to the fence and 
secure him, always reaching for the ring slowly instead 
of the usual way, which is with a quick gral), always 
frightening the bull and causing him to jump backward 
and pull on the ring, hurting his nose so much that it 
soon becomes difficult to catch him. In this way a bull 



90 • THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

can be handled with perfect safety, since there is al- 
ways a plank fence between him and the attendant, and 
while one holds him another man can enter the pen for 
any purpose necessary. This yard will furnish the bull 
room for exercise, a very important consideration, and 
if not over-fed he may be kept till ten years old or 
moie. The famous Pedro cost the owner $10,000 and 
was kept till he died, at the age of eighteen years. 

It is the custom to dehorn bulls, but I never even 
thought of it and I would never do it under any consid- 
eration for fear of affecting the nervous system and at 
the same time make the attendant careless. H. S. 
Weeks tells a good story on himself. One day he had 
some visitors and took them to the barn yard to see his 
Jersey cows. A large bull was running loose with them 
and he was telling them how the bull was so cross be- 
fore dehorning that it v^'as hardly safe to enter the yard, 
"but now," he added, "1 am not afraid of him." Just 
then the bull made a jump for him, and, if Mr. "Weeks 
had not quickly jumped one side, he would have been 
crushed against the barn. This is the old story about 
the gun: "I didn't know it was loaded." 

Now if a bull ever gets loose and tips over a wheel- 
barrow and upsets things generally, do not get excited, 
but drive your herd of cows where he is, and the mis- 
chief is over. We once had a case of the kind, and, by 
turning two cows out of the stable, he was captured 
within ten minutes. This was done without danger by 
shaking a pan of oats while there was a good fence be- 
tween us. Get a bull accustomed to this way of feeding 
grain to him when he is young, and he will generally 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 91 

come for the feed; if not, another man may drive all the 

cattle near the fenoe and we never have one that fails to 

come a short distance wlien called. Should this fail in 

in any case, drive all the cows into the stable and it is 

very easy to secure him, by reaching for the ring in his 

nose when he does not notice you. Occasionally, this 

ring is broken and a new one must be put in. To do 

this when he is in a pen, throw a long rope over his 

horns and run this over a pulley fastened overhead and 

draw his head near the side of the pen and as high as 

possible. Secure the other end of the rope by winding 

around a post and it is very easy for two men to put a 

ring into any bull's nose, provided there has been one 

there before. To put one in for the first tim^', when 

very large, would be an undesirable job. We put in the 

rings when they are a year old by fastening them in 

rigid stanchions and pulling the head one side with a 

rope around the horns. When a man saws off the horns, 

he must fiad some way of his own to secure an old bull 

for inserting the ring. A bull must never be hitched 

with a rope in the ring, when he is outside of his pen, 

for sometimes he will pull the ring through the flesh. I 

saw one bull that had done this and another ring was 

put in above by turning it at right angles to the first 

one. 

Finally, never train a bull nor give him any advice, 
but as far as possible let him alone, unless you have a 
tread power, where you can sober him. An ox can be 
trained when he is constantly in the yoke, but to train a 
bull handled but little, only irritates him and makes 
him worse instead of better. 



92 THIR T Y YEA RS A MO.VG CO iVS 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

EAISING CALVES. 

There is a general complaint among dairymen 
throughout the country about losing calves when they 
are small, and I take up this subject more especially to 
discuss this unnatural condition of affairs. The follow- 
ing extract is from an editorial in Hoard's Dairyman of 
May 14,1897: 

CALF MOETALITY. 

The readers of Hoard's Dairyman, are not the only 
people who are afflicted with the loss of young calves. 
Scarcely one of our exchanges comes to hand without 
one or more reports or inquiries on this subject, and all 
containing evidence, that the disease is equally as baf- 
fling to the veterinary profession, as to the owners of 
the stock. The weight of opinion, just now, seems to 
incline to the theory, that the cause of the disease ante- 
dates birth, and is due, either to the food of the dams, 
or to the contaminated atmosphere they are compelled 
to breathe in the close stabling of winter. 

The situation is certainly serious enough to de- 
mand the attention of our experiment stations and agri- 
cultural and veterinary schools. We do not know of 
anything more disheartening, to the breeder and dairy- 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 93 

man, than these matters of abortion and mortality among 
calves; but so far as public information goes, they are 
receiving little or no close study, from those to whom 
we have a right to look for information. 



Having been through similar trials myself, I know 
how to sympathize with those in trouble if I am unable 
to suggest any remedy or method of prevention. From 
oae Jersey cow I have lost three calves from scouring. 
She is a very rich milker and belongs to a rich milking 
strain. Her daughter tested 8.2 per cent, butter fat 
seven months before calving.' I easily found a way to 
prevent scours, although, it was several years before I 
could get any idea of the cause. Tha first calf from this 
cow lived only two days. Others lived several weeks, 
but finally went the same way. Later I took the calves 
away from the cow when they were twelve hours old 
and gave them half new milk and half skim-milk for 
two weeks and gradually changed to skim-milk and 
boiled flax seed. I gave them only two-thirds as much 
as they seemed to require and this small quantity of 
weak milk was easily digested, but when a calf sucks 
very rich milk from the cow and takes all he can hold, 
indigestion and scours are sure to follow. Many farm, 
ers begin to feed oats to young calves, but I would never 
do it before they are a month old. Milk and hay seem 
to make healthy calves and the growth can be attended 
to when their digestion becomes stronger. There are 
many ways of spoiling a calf's digestion. Besides the 
ways mentioned the most common is to feed milk too 



94 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

warm or too cold. Either of those will ruin any calf 
although some breeds of calves will live through more 
hard usage than Jerseys. For four years after I began 
to breed Jerseys, I lost one-fourth of the calves by 
scours. Not being accustomed to rich milker, I did not 
quickly catch on to the cause of the trouble audit seems 
now that some one might have told me many things 
which I have been compelled to learn by experience. 
My losses from scours amounted to several hundred 
dollars, but for several years I have not lost a single 
calf that way. 

When a calf gets the scours from any cause, every 
farmer has a sure cure. Among the many remedies 
may be mentioned: Lime water, flour, browned in oven; 
eggs, boiled milk, castor oil, red pepper, ginger, brandy, 
ess. of peppermint and tinct. of rhubarb mixed in equal 
parts. With me the most of these remedies failed in 
severe cases. It may be advisable to mention some of 
the ways that have worked the best. A calf should al- 
ways have access to fresh dirt and get some exercise, 
then if there is a mild case of scours, scald the milk 
and mix a teaspoonful of castor oil and as mach ginefer. 
While conducting a great many experiments, I once hit 
upon a novel cure. I was once reading in Ayer's Alma- 
nac that the pills advertised were made from an extract 
of castor beans, and I dissolved one pill and used it in- 
stead of the castor oil and it seemed to work better in 
the cases I have tried. There is a root of a plant that 
grows in all parts of the country, that is a sure cure for 
the worst case of diarrhoea in man or beast. ' This is 
such a powerful astringent that I hesitate about recom- 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG CUIVS 95 

mendiDg it, for an over-dose might prove fatal. 

For years I have not used any of the remedies 
mentioned, but have used a very effective prescription 
which I intended to publish, but I find it is a private 
formula and the man who originated it considers it his 
property, and does not like to makd it public. 

If there is anything more dangerous than scours, 
it is constipation. I lost several calves mysteriously 
and found upon examination that this was the cause. 
It is easy to prevent this by putting a small quantity of 
boiled flax seed in the milk and a very little salt. 

In regard to the great loss among calves at the pres- 
ent time, the remark in the extract given that "the 
cause of the disease antedates birth," seems to be the 
true explanation of their dying so quickly after they are 
dropped. When my cows aborted, a part of them car- 
ried their calves the full time and then the calf was 
dead or, in some cases, lived only a few hours. For two 
years a cow in my herd has dropped a dead calf and I 
anticipated the same trouble this spring. For a month 
during the winter I gave the cow a small teaspoonful of 
phosphate of lime, daily, and I have never seen a calf 
with more vim and vigor. There seems to be a lack of 
some material for manufacturing healthy calves, and 
experiments along this line can do no harm. 

The suggestion in regard to the "food of the dams" 
may have something to do with it. Avoid bran with 
black specks or middlings that taste bitter. It seems 
to be the custom of millers to grind screenings contain- 
ing cockle and mix it with other kinds of feed. I con- 
sider cockle very dangerous feed and there is a machine 



gS THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

that will separate the cockle from the wheat, bat why 
should a miller throw away what he can sell for $6 to 
$10 per ton ? The only way to keep this dangerous 
staff out or the feed, is for the farmers in the wheat re- 
gion to sow nothing but clean wheat and use every 
means possible to get rid of the cockle. 

We publish the following from Country Gentle- 
man: 

CALVES WASTING AWAY. 

Eds. Country Gentleman: — Last spring I began 
raising three of my calves, one bull and two heifers^ 
After about three weeks we commenced feeding them 
skimmed milk and oil meal as directed by your paper. 
They were fed this and did well as long as they would 
drink the milk. I had gradually worked them on to 
whole oats, shorts, bran and oil meal, hay, fresh-cut 
corn fodder, with plenty of ears, and they seemed to be 
doing finely up to the last of September, when they 
seemed gradually to go down, refused their food and 
lost rapidly in flesh. Their bowels seemed to be regu- 
lar. I gave them an appetizer, but it seemed to have 
no effect. One heifer lingered along, and got so weak 
that she could not get up. I knocked her in the head 
and put her under the sod. 

In two or three week the bull died of his own ac- 
cord. After death his eyes sank way back in his head. 
I got our local veterinarian and had him examine him. 
He pronounced his stomach and bowels normal, lungs 
slightly affected and liver rotten, as he termed it. With 
light pressure, you could pash a stick through it any- 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 97 

where. The gall bladder was as large as I ever saw on 
a full grown beef. 

The third one is still alive, poor as wood and has 
no appetite; picks a little at hay and corn fodder, and 
possibly eats a handful of grain twice a day and about 
the same of sugar beets. Her bowels are a little in- 
clined to be constipated, but I think she inherits this 
from her mother. I have given her a drench three 
times, salts, molasses and ginger, but does not seem to 
be of lasting effect. Eyes bright and seems to feel good, 
and I think drools a little at mouth; does not cough. I 
don't think she eats any more than my fall calves. 
Tneir ancestors are all well and healthy. Have you any 
hope of tne calf, or would you advise killing her ? 

These calves were kept up in barn all summer, as 
advocated by your best writers, and windows darkened 
in fly time. H. B., Orleans County, N. Y. 



I had a similar case in 1895 and two more in 1896. 
The first year I finally killed the calf, having no idea of 
the cause. The pa?t season one of them was so bad, 
recovery was impossible, as it had wasted to a mere 
skeleton with plenty of feed and drink. And right here 
is the cause of the whole trouble, in my case — they had 
too much drink. A calf forms the habit of drinking all 
the milk you give whether it is too much or too little, 
and when water is substituted for the milk, he does the 
same thing, provided the water is given him in a pail 
On one of the neighboring farms a boy carried water 
to a calf, supposing it to be very thirsty, and the calf 
drank so much that it killed him. I have had bulls 



98 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

after they were grown up that would drink all right at 
a trough, but would drink from a pail as long as you 
would carry water. 

Now, in the case of these two calves the last season, 
I conjectured they had had too much water. This di- 
lutes the gastric juice of the stomach so that the food is 
not well digested and of course the body is not properly 
nourished, and the natural result is, the animal wastes 
away. In the extract given, it states that the calves 
"seemed to be doing finely up to the last of Septem- 
ber." This statement is consistent with my theory. 
Considerable water would be required while warm 
weather lasted, but, by continuing the same quantity of 
water during the cool weather of October and the fol- 
lowing months, the farmer undoubtedly ruined the 
calves. I gave the calf that was reduced very much, 
but still strong, one-half as much water and this one 
gradually improved, but has not yet fully recovered. 
Temperance people may learn that water as well as 
whiskey may be used in such a way as to be destructive 
to animal life. The only two suggestions that I can 
make is that in weaning calves they should have a chance 
to get what water they require from a trough instead of 
a pail, and that they should have some corn meal mixed 
with the other feed while they are getting milk and 
after they are weaned. Whenever they seem to be get- 
ting too fat, stop feeding corn meal. A calf raised for 
the dairy should never be fat or too much of the feed 
may be used for making tallow, instead of butter after 
the calf becomes a c(?w. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 99 



CHAPTER XV. 

GARGET. 

The following extract is from the Country Gentle- 
man: 

Caked Udder. —A cow came in about two months 
aero; did well, but now one-quarter of the bag is hard- 
ened, and that teat is nearly dry; yet gives a little milk. 
Cow is perfectly' healthy to all appearances. I have 
had considerable trouble with my herd in this line and 
believe it to be a bag difficulty, but am not successful in 
my attempts to overcome the same. L. b. j., Ketchum- 
ville, N. Y. [Give 2 oz. spirits of turpentine and 1 1-2 
pts. raw linseed oil. Next day give 2 oz. spirits turpen- 
tine and one-half pint linseed oil. Rub quarter with 
some of the following lotion a day: Aqua ammonia fort., 
2 oz. ; linseed oil 4 oz. ; spirits of turpentine 4 oz. ; 
vinegar, 1 qt. ; mix. Feed bran, ground oats, hay 
and corn fodder. Allow no other food for two weeks. 
Report in a week and refer to this page.]" 



The disease described is very common and in the 
first stages is not difficult to overcome. Take a piece of 
poke root in bulk about equal to a hen's egg and cut 
in small pieces and feed by putting inside a potato, or 
when green it may be scraped and mixed with liquid 
and given from a bottle. Another way is to feed with 



loo THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

meal a ppoonful of salt peter every morning and a tea- 
spoonful of coperas at nignt. 

In one very obstinate case, when the bag was so 
caked that the cow seemed to be ruined, a cure was 
effected by using beans boiled without changing the 
water and mixing one quart with feed twice a day. In 
case of swelling of any kind, there is nothing better 
than bean poultice made by cooking beans in the spme 
way. 

A CHILL. 

Sometimes in hot weather a cow will come from the 
pasture shivering as though she had been out in a cold 
rain storm. This indicates a diseased condition of the 
blood and is a symptom of garget and is usually fol- 
lowed by caked udder. In case of a chill without ap- 
parent cause, give some of the remedies first mentioned, 
but if there is a chill from exposure to a cold storm, 
put in a warm stable, rub well and cover with blankets. 
Give a dose of whiskey, quinine and ginger. A much 
better way is to avoid the chill by keeping cattle in the 
barn even in the middle of the summer, when there is a 
cold rain. Years ago I knew a cow to die from expos- 
ure to a heavy rain one afternoon. At night she was 
put in the stable shivering and nothing was done for 
her but to fill the stable with cattle and close the doors. 
This was in the month of June and it would seem to be 
a sure way of generating heat, but there was a loft over 
the cows' heads for feeding and the wind sucked down 
over the cattle and this cow did not get warmed up and 
died two days afterwards with all the appearance of 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows lox 

milk fever, although this was eight months afier calv- 
ing. 

Nearly five years had passed and I had met with 
no losses from milk fever and was beginning to think 
the disease was conquered, and I had no fears of any 
more cases, when suddenly a new disease, very similar, 
appeared. Writers upon farm topics have not divided 
these into two classes, but have considered them the 
same, and I may properly give the points of difference 
as they appear to me: 

1. Milk fever may be avoided by preventing im- 
paction of the manifolds, keeping the bowels loose and 
drawing all the milk for a week before calving. 

2. Milk fever occurs only at the time of calving. 

3. Heifers under four years do not have milk 
fever. 

4. Milk fever usually follows heavy feeding. 

5. In a case of milk fester a cow may be down 
three or four days and recover. 

6. With milk fever the stomach and bowels are 
affected more than the brain. 

With the other disease, which we will call a chill, 
the usual precautions for milk fever amount to nothing, 
and we will write out the points of difference in order, 
and ask a comparison. 

1. In case of a chill, drawing the milk before calv- 
ing and keeping the bowels loose will have no effect. 
In one case the milk was not allowed to accumulate in 
the bag, and the cow had two quarts of oats mixed with 
a pint of whole flax seed twice a day. With wheat bran 
half a pint of ground flax seed and a little salt were 



1 02 THIR T V YEARS A MONG CO WS 

mixed and the bowels were loose and moved after the 
cow was down and unable to rise. 

2. A chill may kill a cow months after calving, al- 
though it requires more exposure to cold or storm than 
at calving time. 

3. A heifer two years old would be as likely to die 
from the effects of a chill as an old cow. 

4. A chill will kill a cow no matter how poor her 
feed, but it may require more exposure with a poorly- 
fed cow than with one highly fed. 

5. In case of severe chill at calving time the dis- 
ease is incurable and the cow will die within twenty- 
four hours from the time she falls. When the chill 
is only slight, we sometimes read how cows have been 
saved by covering them with steaming ensilage or horse 
manure. Any veterinarian can prescribe remedies to 
be taken internally to assist in starting the perspira- 
tion. 

6. In case of chill the brain appears to be affected 
more than the bowels. The eyes soon become glazed, 
the throat paralyzed and death soon puts an end to the 
most intense suffering. 

A change in circamstances brought me cases of 
this kind, but the trouble stopped as soon as I had 
time to ascertain the cause. There was a stable where 
two horses usually stood which was used for cows at 
calviug time, provided it was not very cold. This was 
large and airy enough so that it was not necessary to 
open doors or windows and a cow was pretty well pro- 
tected from the wind. A new floor had been put in 
this stable, made of plank run through a planer and, 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 103 

being slanting and of course wet, it was too slippery to 
use for cows. A new place had to be found, and one 
night in April when the weather was mild, a cow was 
put in a pen covered with marsh hay. There was a 
special arrangement to prevent wind from entering be- 
tween the sides and roof, and the pen was double board- 
ed with building paper between and had a good floor. 
Now, who would wish for a more comfortable place for 
a cow in April when the severe weather was over ? One 
morning we found a calf in the pen. The cow was 
chewing her cud during the day and seemed to be do- 
ing well. As it would be less trouble to me, I decided 
to let the cow remain with the calf during the night 
which proved to be very windy. The protection from 
wind was sufficient for that season of the year, except 
in one place. A horse had once been kept m the same 
pen and had eaten a hole through the marsh hay in the 
roof. Corn stalks had been thrown over which served 
to darken but did not exclude the wind like fine hay. 
During the night the cow was badly chilled and in 
twenty-four hours was dead. Even in a good stable where 
many head of cattle are kept, warm weather may make 
it necessary to open windows, and a change of tempera- 
ture and wind may result in the same loss. Hence, a 
stable which has but few animals in proportion to its 
size had been my choice for cows when they must have 
air, but be kept from the wind. I have thus given a 
case in detail, hoping others may learn how to avoid 
similar losses. 



1 04 THIR T Y YEA RS A MONG CO IV S 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SMALL PESTS. 

Of all pests that we have, the chiachbug has done 
the most damage in the West. The following is from 
the New York Tribune: 

"FIGHTING THE CHINCHBUG. 

"This pestiferous, ravenous bug destroyed more 
property in the United States during the season of 1896 
than would be required to buy Cuban independence. 

"I am not prepared to say whether its ravages have 
been greater or more extensive during 1896 than dur- 
ing the preceding seasons, but I can say that the far- 
mers are beginning to realize that its inroads upon 
their crops must, in some way, be checked, to prevent 
the shrinkage whose absence would often place the 
balance upon the right side of their ledgers. And they 
are co-operating with the eperiment stations in endeav- 
oring to find the best method of extermination. 

"All, I think, of the barrier methods have been used 
in this country with poor success, and I am convinced 
that the best of barriers will not protect a field for 
more than a few minutes. Many advise digging post- 
holes in the trenches every few rods, under the belief 
that the bug once in the trench will march up and 
down the trench, in the manner of breachy stock trying 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 105 

to find a gap in the fence, and will fall into the holes 
and be easily destroyed. 

Th^s is errouaous, or, at least, very uncertain, for 
they turn only to sonaething green and palatable. When 
reaching the barrier they immediately begin an ascent 
of its walls, and, though they fall back many times, they 
are persistent, and will finally reach and scale the top. 
Tar and salt, kerosene and salt fences are soon covered 
with dust, and the bugs cross over undisturbed." 

The writer states further that he has little hope of 
exterminating them except by spreading disease among 
them by "placing diseased bugs here and there among 
the well ones in the field," but admits that he has had 
very poor success with his experiments thus far. 

In 1889 I first had some corn destroyed by chinch- 
bugs which came from a neighbor's field of barley. I 
had just moved into a new locality and had never seen 
them before and did not know jinything of their habits 
or how to fight them. The next season I sowed Hun- 
garian twenty rods from a field of barley. When the 
barley was cut the chinch bugs marched across a piece 
of plowed ground and began upon the hungarian and 
had destroyed a strip a rod in width when I discovered 
them, and, anticipating a complete destruction of the 
field unless something could be done speedily, I con- 
cluded to ask advice of a man who lived in the vicinity 
and who knew how to deal with them better than I, for 
he had been among them twenty-five years. He visited 
the field and said they were so thick they would be 
likely to destroy the entire crop and nothing could be 
done to stop them. I started for home and concluded 



io6 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

to let the bugs have everything their own way. A 
week later I returned to the field and found they had 
advanced only a few feet and had got their wings and 
scattered over the entire field, but in their winged state 
they proved comparatively harmless and I had a good 
crop of hungariaa on the field excepting a narrow strip. 
Then and there I determined to fight them the follow- 
ing season by feeding them. I sowed a strip of hun- 
garian between the corn and barley, and before they 
had eaten all the hungarian they had reached maturity 
and scattered and the corn escaped. Mr. JF. P. Hart- 
well of Summit Center, Wis., had for several years lost 
four acres of corn out of twelve and I suggested that he 
try the new way, and he reports that he sowed a strip 
ten feet wide with hungarian and the bugs took that 
and one row of corn and stopped. The strip was 
seventy rods in length and he thinks six cents per rod, 
or $420, would cover the cost of seed, labor and rent of 
land. 

This method has probably never been published 
and now for the first time I publicly recommend it and 
ask all who try it to report the result. The new fence 
is cheap enough and would never be likely to fail un- 
less in a very dry season when hungarian would make 
but a small growth. 

LICE ON CATTLE. 

Take equal parts of lard oil and kerosene and put 
in a handful of sulphur into a quart of the mixture. 
With a shoe brush rub this over the animal until the 
hair is moist but not wet. Kepeat in three weeks. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 107 

LICE IN THE HEN HOUSE. 

Put one teacupful of crude carbolic acid into two 
gallons of kerosene and sprinkle around the house, and 
lata in the afternoon use a sponge on the roosts and the 
offensive odor will drive away or kill the lice on the 
hens. The nest boxes must be well washed with the 
same. 

TO AVOID POTATO BUGS. 

Plant late potatoes June 1. This worked well in 
1896. No bugs appeared in the field during the season. 
In 1897 the spring was very cold and the bugs put in 
their work later and there were a few which were killed 
by using Paris green applied with a broom brush in- 
stead of sprinkler, requiring one fourth the water and 
one fourth the work. 



io8 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

CHAPTEE XVIL 

CONVENIENT BUILDINGS. 

A man's success in handling cows depends vary 
much upon having convenient barns. My barns were 
built to suit some one else. Had I money to build 
them over I think I would save half the work during 
the winter. As I have never seen nor used my kind of 
a barn, I cannot tell how it would work and I have con- 
cluded to pass over the subject with a single remark: 
I would never tolerate a horse barn nor a cow barn 
with a ditch for the stock to walk over. 

When building a new house do not forget the 
kitcheo. A farmer's wife spends the greater part of 
her time in the kitchen and only one house in a thous- 
and has a kitchen built for summer use. To have it 
cool, it must not be put in one coiner of a large house 
but must be built beyond the main part at least tvventy 
feet long with a stove in one end and two windows on 
each side near the middle and opposite end so to give 
a free circulation of air through the rooms without dan- 
ger of cooling the oven too much when' baking. We 
have such a kitchen with a dining room at each end 
and you can always feel a breeze passing through the 
room which would be impossible in a kitchen with an- 
other room on one side. 

Hard and soft water must be provided without the 
necessity of going out summer or winter. We have a 



THIRTY YEARS AMOMG cows 109 

refrigerator costing $2.50 made by lining the under 
part of a cupboard with zinc and inserting a small tube 
for an outlet through the floor. We never elevate the 
ice but drag it in on the floor and let it be in the lower 
part with slat shelves over it. Confine the air around 
the ice and you will have a box of the same temperature 
whether tha ice is high or low. 

If you have no ice, take a large batter jar or new 
S9>ver pipe and dig a hole in the bottom of the cellar 
large enough to admit which ever you choose to use 
and cover well. You will then have a cellar beneath a 
cellar and many degrees cooler than the upper one. 

CONCLUSION. 

Many subjects have been omitted to give space for 
other writfTs. A few points have been given about the 
care of cattle. Let the reader remember that a little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing. There are hundreds 
of times in a man's life when he can afford to use and 
pay for the knowledge of an expert rather than use his 
OWI. A horse is cut in a barbed wire fence, or slips a 
stifle out, a cow runs down to a skeleton, or perhaps 
gets choked and in such cases the chances are against 
you for you have had little experience. I know of one 
farmer who sent eight miles for a veterinarian to re- 
lieve a choked cow, and in that way undoubtedly saved 
her. 

The reader will find much in this little book that 
does not suit him, and those who would like to give 
the writer information upon any subject, are invited to 
write him and he will take pleasure in correcting at 



no THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

some future time any statements calculated to mislead. 
Only by studying and comparing notes can we hope to 
ever find the truth. 

One chapter was prepared on hard times, but we 
pass it over with one statement: In the early part of 
the present century a woman used to spin wool, using 
the large wheel which most of us have seen. A week's 
wages amounted to fifty cents in specie and board. A 
day's work was five skeins of 660 yards each or 16,800 
yards for fifty cents and board and nobody had then 
heard of "low wages" or "hard times." Those who 
have seen a woman at work at her spinning wheel can 
understand that she took a great many steps for a cent. 
In those times you might look in vain through a town- 
ship for a piano, organ or covered carriage. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows iii 

THE BREEDING OF GUERNSEY GRADES. 

BY W. D. RICHARDSON, GARDEN CITY, MINN. 

I say Guernsey grades, and I do not say it thinking 
that there are no others, because there are tens of 
thousands of farmers in this broad land who would do 
well to breed grades of any improved breed of cattle in- 
stead of the horde of unprofitable scrubs they persist in 
perpetuating. Bat I say Guernsey grades from knowl- 
edge and experience in breeding and handling them by 
the side of grades of other breeds. I say Guernsey 
grades in preference \o Short-Horn grades becau?e they 
are very much more profitable in the dairy, in fact, my 
attention was called to their excell*^nce by comparison 
with Short- Horn grades. The first two Guernsey 
grades I had, grew to be two-year olds and came in at 
about the same time. At about the same time I also 
had four grade Short-Horns come in, the S.-H.'s were 
four and fivvi years oli. These six stood in a row to- 
gether and it occurred to me to have the milk of the 
two put into one can and that of the four into another, 
and when it came to the churn the two two-year olds 
made more butter than the four four and fivo-year olds 
and besides the butter of the first was yellow and that 
of the others white. You will pardon the digression if 
I tell you that at the test at the Chicogo Exposition the 
Guernsey men used no artificial coloring in their but- 
ter. Both the other breeds did, but tne Guernseys re- 
ceived no credit for their ability to color their butter. 



112 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

I will also tell you that I sent butter for the gold medal 
competition sending one package each month for four 
months, the butter had noi a particle of artificial color- 
ing in it yet I have two of the score cards in my pos- 
spission marked by the judge two points off on color with 
a written line ^'tao much coloring in it." I received a 
gold medal for butter just the same. I say Guernsey 
grades instead of Jersey grades because I have found 
them to be of better size, have better constitutions, bet- 
ter and more evenly quartered udders, and better teats. 
I have also found them much better tempered. I have 
bred and handled about seventy-five Guernsoy grades 
and have never had a nervous or vicious one. I say 
Guernsey grades instead of Holstein grades because I 
can get something back for my feed. 

In starting to breed Guernsey grades T would say 
use the best selected native cotos as your foundation 
cows. If you use grades of any other breed let them 
be Jersey grades as they will blend and harmonize bet- 
ter than any other I have tried. The Holstein cross 
is too violent and is not satisfactory. The Short-Horn 
cross is better than the Holstein but still is not as good 
as that wiih the native. In using my improved grade 
you have to antagonize one blood against the other. 
You will not breed up as rapidly and yon are far more 
lial)ie to bring out undesirable traits of some ancestor 
on one side or the other. With the native the impres- 
sibility of your Guernsey sire is much more apparent. 
Although you will find some native cows so strong that 
they will transmit their own color for two generations. 
Select your cow carefully, keeping those that give a 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 113 

reasonable flow of milk for a long time rather than 
those that give a large flow for a short time and go dry 
a long time. Then weed out the ones you keep, keep- 
ing those whose milk is richest. One of the greatest 
disappointments met with in breeding from native cows, 
is their lack of ability to transmit any good qualities 
they may possess. For instance, you may take two 
cows, one a good deal better, individually than the 
other, and breed to the same sire. The poorer individ- 
ual may be far more impressible than the other. If so, 
her offspring will be very likely to resemble their sire 
and if heifers make much better cows than those of the 
better cow which resemble their dam, I would say that 
in a bunch of heifers of equal value in regard to form 
and general indications for dairy cows, that it is always 
safe to keep those resembling the sire. Do not expect 
everything from the first cross. You will find your 
heifers resulting from the second cross much superior 
to those from the first, and this will be especially true if 
they are bred in, that is, breed the sire to his own 
daughters. Of course, if you should have one or two 
that were not vigorous, do not breed them in, but all 
that are all right should be so treated. This brings us 
to the consideration of the sire. Some one has said 
that a good sire is one whose daughters are equal to 
their dams and a great sire is one whose daughters are 
very much superior to their dams, and Mr. J. H. Walker 
says that "no man can estimate the difference between 
the best and next to the best." Don't think that be- 
cause you only want to breed grades that you can afford 
to buy an inferior bull. Above all things, don't think 



114 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

of using a grade. Whenever it is possible to do so, 1 
would advise the buying of a sire that had been tried 
and that had shown that he was a sire of good cows 
with good shaped udders aud good, well shaped teats, 
no matter if he should happen to be 6, 7 or 8 years 
old. Eightly used he will be useful for several years. 
In selecting a younger bull, get one with good head, 
good lung and heart power, good barrel (long and deep) 
cut well out behind. See that he has four good sized 
rudimentary teats and that they are well apart. See 
that his milk veins are long and that he does not stand 
too high from the ground. Do not use him any more 
than is absolutely necessary as a yearling. He will be 
enough better afterward to pay for it, and do not let 
him run with the cows and use himself up five or six 
times as fast as he should. 

I have already made this longer than I expected to. 
If it is rambling and disjointed, you can lay it to the fact 
that I have not had much experience in writing for 
publication. I will close with a few tests taken as the 
cows stood. The first group was taken in May and the 
last in October. I have no memorandum of how long 
they had been in milk, but they were all half-blood 
heifers. (4.75,4.70,4.61). (5.5, 5.7, 5., 5.2). 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 115 

Syracuse, N. Y., July 2, 1897. 

Mk N, B. White, Oconomowoc, Wis. — Dear Sir: — 
Your favor was received a few days since, and certainly 
your proposition is a most liberal one— much more so 
than we could have expected, and we feel almost as if 
we were intruding upon you to offer anything from our 
herd for publication. 

We will, however, send you a half-tone from a 
photograph of Sir Netherland Clothilde, 8517, which 
bull at present stands at the head of our herd, and 
which we believe to be one of the best specimens of the 
breed. He is not only making a reputation in the show 
ring, having several times been shown at the New York 
State fair, and has st-veral times taken the First Prize 
in his class, but has also taken Sweepstakes over all 
bulls of all ages; has stood at the head of the herd that 
won the Gold Medal; his produce has taken First; his 
daughters have won First in their various classes; his 
sons have also been awarded the highest honors, and in 
fact, we believe no other bull has ever made such a 
showing, but his most valuable characteristic is the 
milk and butter production of his descendants. Four- 
teen of his daughters, at two years of age— all that we 
have milked through the year, have made records which 
average for the whole number over 10,000 pounds per 
year, and butter records which average over 12 pounds 
per week, and the test for pure fat, by the Babcock 
Tester, showed an average of over 4 per cent. 

His get are exceedingly uniform, and of the type 
of the sire. 

In breeding he contains 75 per cent, of the blood 



Ii6 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

of Netherland Prince, which bull was especially noted 
on account of the butter qualities of his daughters. 
The other 25 per cent, of his blood is largely of the 
Clothilde stock. 

This cross of the Clothilde and Netherland Fami- 
lies has produced the finest show animals in the "Lake- 
side" Herd, and as producers, they have been second to 
none. 

We also send a half-tone electrotype of Netherland 
Monk's Aaggie Constance, 20556, taken at four years of 
age. 

This cow as a two-year-old gave 62 pounds, 6 ounces 
of milk in a day; 11,201 pounds, 7 ounces in a year, and 
made 15 pounds, 8^ ounces of butter in a week. As a 
three-year-old she made 20 pounds, Yq. ounce ot butter 
in a week, and gave over 12,000 pounds of milk in a 
year. As a four-year-old she gave over 14,000 pounds 
in a year. 

Her dam, Aaggie Constance, commencing at 26 
months of age, gave that season 16,761 pounds, 11 
ounces of milk in a year — her highest day's yield ba- 
ng 76 pounds, 6 ounces. As a six-year-old she made 
19 pounds, 14^ ounces of butter in a week. 

Netherland Monk,s Aaggie Constance was sired by 
Netherland Monk, a eon of Netherland Prince, and 
whose dam, Albino 2d, stands ahead of all cows of her 
age in production, having given as a two-year-old 16,484 
pounds, 13 ounces of milk in a year, and op her four- 
teenth month in milk, at that age. made 13 pounds, 14^ 
ounces of butter in a week. As a three-year-old she gave 
over 70 pounds of milk in a day, and made 25 pounds, 



Ii8 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

14^ ounces of butter in a week, and 106 pounds, 14 
ounces in 30 days. 

The old cove "Aaggie" 901, we presume will be 
familiar to m )3t of your readers, but as no cow had a 
greater reputation, at her time, and very few have done 
so much for the reputation of the breed, we send you a 
wood-cut, made by Palmer, and showing this cow in her 
prime, six-years-old, at which age she beats the world's 
records, by giving 18,004 pounds, 15 ounces of milk in 
a year. 

She stood at the head of the Aaggie Family at 
"Lakeside," which family probably has produced as 
many great cows as any other family ever known. 

Aaggie 2d, a daughter of this cow, surpassed all 
Iwo-year-old records by giving 17,746 pounds, 2 ounces 
of milk in a year. As a mature cow she gave 20,763 
pounds, 3 ounces m a year, made 26 pounds, 7 ounces 
of butter in a week, and 304 pounds, 5>^ ounces in 90 
days. 

Aaggie's 2d daughter, by Netherland Prince, when 
but 25 months old, on winter feed, without any grain, 
having only ensilage and hay, made 15 pounds, 1 ounce 
of butter in a week. 

Neptane, a son of Aaggie, was the sire of a large 
number of heifers which at two-years of age, made rec- 
ords ranging from 10,000 to 12,000 pounds in a year, 
and quite a large number of them, at from two to five 
years of age, made butter records ranging from 12 to 
24 pounds in a week. 

As an evidence of what can be accomplished in a 
single herd, by perseverance in testing, and breeding 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows I19 

for a specific object, we will say that in the "Lakeside" 
Herd since its foundation over one hundred cows and 
heifers have made yearly milk records which average 
over 15,000 pounds, and the same number have made 
weekly butter records which average about 20 pounds. 
Among these would be included such cows as 
Clothilde, which at six years of age gave 26,021 pounds, 
2 ounces of milk in a year; Clothilde 2d, at four-years, 
23,602 pounds, 10 ounces in a year; Lady Fay, five 
years, 20,412 pounds, 3 ounces in a year; Aaggie Rosa, 
seven years, 20.225 pounds, 3 ounces in a year ; Nether- 
land Belle, four years, 19.546 pounds, 3 ounces in a 
year; Albino 2d, two years, as given above; Aaggie, six 
years, 18,004 pounds, 15 ounces in a year; xlegis 2d, 
seven years, 17,943 pounds, 2 ounces in a year; Nether- 
land Consort, five years, 17,673 pounds, 9 ounces in a 
year; Aaggie Cornelia 3 J, four years, 17,350 pounds in 
a year; Addie, eight years, 17,164 pounds, 15 ounces in 
a year; Netherland Dowager, ten years, 17,190 pounds; 
Aaggie Idaline, seven years, 17,129 pounds, 7 ounces in 
a year; Careno, five years, 17,103 pounds, 15 ounces in 
a year; Aaggie Rachel, five years, 17,073 pounds, 7 
ounces in a year; Lady Griswold, seven years, 17,023 
pounds, 7 ounces in a year; Vallej Beauty, six years, 
17,009 pounds, 8 ounces in a year, etc., etc., and cows 
with the following butter records: Clothilde 2d, eight 
years, 30 pounds, 8 ounces in a week, and 320 pounds, 
\% ounces in 90 days; Clothilde, eight years, 28 pounds 
^%. ounces in a week; Albino 2d, three years, 25 pounds 
145^ ounces; Aegis, thirteen years, 25 pounds, \^% 
ounces; Bonanza Maid, five years, 21 pounds, 3^ ounces; 



I20 THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 

Idene Roeker, five years, 25 pounds, 3^ ounces; Neth- 
erland Peeress, 25 pounds, }{ ounce; Lady Griswold, 
nine years, 25 pounds, 14 ounces; Netherland Dorinda, 
eight years, 24 pounds, 9^ ounces; (Jlothilde 4th, three 
years, 23 pounds, 10^ oancee: Aegis 2d, six years, 23 
pounds, 7^ ounces; Aaggie Beauty 2d, five years, 25 
pounds, 5^ ounces; Cocelia Rooker, four years, 22 
pounds, \^Y\ ounces, etc., etc. 

Do sire and dam transmit butter qualities to their 
offspring? All breeders who have carefully investi- 
gated the subject will answer this inquiry in the affir- 
mative, and as an evidence we will refer to a few of the 
Holstein-Friesian cows and families with which we are 
familiar. 

Netherland Prince was a marked example of the 
influence of a sire upon the butter production of his 
daughters. 

Eight of his daughters — one two-year-old, five three- 
year-olds, one four-year-old, and one five-year-old — 
made weeklv buttor records which averaged 20 pounds, 
3)^ ounces; while twenty-five of his daughters — the 
majority of them being two and three-years-old, made 
weekly butter records which averrge over 15 pounds; 
and twenty-eight of his grand-daughters — over three- 
fonrths of them being but two-years-old, made weekly 
butter records which average 14 pounds, 11>^ ounces. 

Sir Netherland Clothilde, which contains a larger 
per eent. of the blood of Netherland Prince than any 
other sire, had fourteen daughters tested in the two- 
year-old form, whose weekly butter records averaged 
over 12 pounds. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG cows 121 

Clothilde, the founder of the Clothilde Family 
which has done so much for the reputation of the breed, 
the winner of the batter prize, over all breeds at the 
great New York Dairy Show in '87, making a butter 
record of 28 pounds, 2^ ounces in a week, produced 
seven daughters in succession, five of which were tested 
for batter — three of them at three-years of age, and the 
average of the five, with the dam, 22 pounds, 15 5-6 
ounces of butter in a week, and 16,809 3^ of milk in a year. 

Jacob 2d, probably the most noted bull of the Aag- 
gie Family ever owned in Holland, had a wonderful in- 
fluence upon the future of the breed in this country. A 
large number of his daughters were imported, and near- 
ly everyone proved to be superior. Eight of his daugh- 
ters made yearly milk records which averaged 16,231 
pounds, 5 ounces, and the same number made weekly 
butter records which averaged 20 pounds, l3^ ounces. 

This is a marked instance of the effect of a superior 
sire in transmitting his dairy qualities to his offspring. 

Many more instances could be given did space per- 
mit. Very truly, 

Smiths k Powell Co. 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 



INDEX. 



Page. 

Abortion 35-46 

Breeding Guernsey Grades 111-114 

Calf Mortality 92 

Calves Wasting Away 96 

Calving Time , 28 

Chill 100 

Chinch Bugs 104-106 

Convenient Buildings 108 

Cross Bulls 87-91 

Drying Up a Cow 27 

Early Customs 5-9 

Feeding for Size 60-65 

Garget 99-101 

Guernsey Grades 111-114 

Heredity 73-80 

Holstein Cattle 115-121 

Keeping Cows Clean 68-71 

Kicking Cows 81-86 

Lice in the Hen House 107 

Lice on Cattle 106 

Loss of Cud 32 

Medicine 32 

Milk Fever 10-26 101-103 



THIRTY YEARS AMONG COWS 123 

Placenta 30 

Potato Bugs 107 

Potatoes, How to Feed 33 

Raising 92-98 

Scours in Calves 93 

Silo ;. 47-59 

Small Pests 104.107 

Smutty Corn 42 

Value of Different Kinds of Feed 66-67 

Water Supply 72 



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